Tag Archives: red

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Tree and Sandstone Cliff

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Tree and Sandstone Cliff - A tree grows from a crack in the face of a redrock sandstone cliff, Zion National Park.

If this photograph looks familiar, it may be because it is! A few weeks back I posted another photograph of more or less the same subject but in landscape orientation rather than portrait orientation. There are, no doubt, many examples of interesting trees growing out of surprisingly small cracks in the faces of sandstone cliffs in Zion and other similar areas, but I spotted this one in the “Big Bend” area of Zion Canyon, where I had stopped to photograph some spring cottonwood trees along the Virgin River.

I love the juxtaposition of the rich greens of the tree with the reds and browns of the sandstone cliffs. In many ways, these are two of the main colors of this part of the Southwest – with the addition of the blue of the sky. That palette of green, red, and blue is everywhere. And there is actually a bit of the blue here, too. The interesting coloration of the dark areas of the rock seems to be partly the result of reflections of the blue light from the blue sky that was above and behind my camera position.

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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Spring Cottonwoods, Zion Canyon

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Spring Cottonwoods, Zion Canyon - New spring leaves appear on cottonwood trees along the Virgin River in Zion Canyon, Zion National Park.
New spring leaves appear on cottonwood trees along the Virgin River in Zion Canyon, Zion National Park.

Spring Cottonwoods, Zion Canyon. Zion National Park, Utah. April 3, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

New spring leaves appear on cottonwood trees along the Virgin River in Zion Canyon, Zion National Park.

I encountered this scene a short distance up the trail from the Temple of Sinawava area in Zion National Park, in the area below the start of “the Narrows.” Here the canyon of the Virgin River becomes quite narrow, eventually narrowing so much that the river often spans its entire width. These young trees, which were just beginning to show their spring leaves, are in along a slightly wider section where the river curves, and just be flooded during times of high water. Beyond, the river and the canyon twist right, left, and then back to the right again between the steep sandstone walls.

I’m always intrigued by trying to photograph these scenes of very dense foliage in which the frame ends up filled with a huge amount of detail. It is a challenge to try to create anything like an effective composition out of this complexity, and I think it is even more difficult to make such photographs “work” in the small presentation necessary for sharing on the web.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Sandstone Towers, Evening Sky

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Sandstone Towers, Evening Sky - Evening clouds above sandstone towers and desert terrain, Arches National Park
Evening clouds above sandstone towers and desert terrain, Arches National Park

Sandstone Towers, Evening Sky. Arches National Park, Utah. April 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening clouds above sandstone towers and desert terrain, Arches National Park.

I think I can manage to coax one more photograph out of my collection of shots from my first evening in Arches National Park back in early April. To recap the story, we checked into a motel in Moab in the middle of the afternoon, and then had enough time to make a late afternoon and evening foray into Arches. We ended up in the “Windows” area just before sunset and ended our day shooting here as the sun set and then on into the evening.

I didn’t get anything of particular note that included the arches for which this spot is known – for example the North and South Windows. (I did photograph the South Window, but by this time the light wasn’t quite what I was looking for.) The wind was very strong, so I ended up behind some of the main rocky formations looking for shelter, and this provided a fairly clear view to the east just after the sun set. In this direction there was a small cluster of red sandstone formations, and as the evening sky begin to clear just a bit and the post-sunset cast a glow over the sky and the land beneath I made a few photographs in this beautiful soft light.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Sandstone Towers, Moon Rising Through Clouds

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Sandstone Towers, Moon Rising Through Clouds - The full moon rises in a cloudy sky above sandstone towers, Arches National Park, Utah.
The full moon rises in a cloudy sky above sandstone towers, Arches National Park, Utah.

Sandstone Towers, Moon Rising Through Clouds. Arches National Park, Utah. April 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The full moon rises in a cloudy sky above sandstone towers, Arches National Park, Utah.

These rocks are near but not exactly part of the windows area at Arches National Park, where we ended up at the end of our first day there. We had arrived in Moab in the afternoon and then driven up into the park very late in the day – more or less gasping in amazement at the geology we were seeing for the first time – and finally ended up in this area just before sunset.

I’m repeating a story I wrote about earlier, so I’ll make the first part short. There was beautiful light leading up to sunset, and there were some interesting clouds in the sky to the north. However, it was extremely windy, making longer exposures as the light faded a real challenge and also making lens changes unwise. After sunset I ended up in the shelter of some rock towers where I found some protection from the wind. I knew that this was going to be a full moon night, but I was a bit concerned that by the time it was high enough that the ambient light would be somewhat dark, making it very difficult to photograph the twilight surroundings and the very bright moon in a single exposure. But as the moon rose and I found a location from which I could position it and the rocks together, high thin clouds partially obscured the moon and allowed my longer exposures for the dim foreground to work. I might have used a longer lens, but the thought of changing lenses in the blowing wind convinced me to just go ahead and shoot with the lens I already had on the camera – and in the end I think that let me produce a more natural view of the moon than I might have achieved with a longer telephoto.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.