Tag Archives: red

Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Textures, Photographs: Yosemite

Reflected Evening Sky, Tuolumne River

July 15, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A solitary boulder interrupts the flow of the Tuolumne River as it reflects the colors of sunset sky, Yosemite National Park.

I’m just back from a few days photographing in the greater Tuolumne Meadows area of the Yosemite and the Sierra. I stayed in Tuolumne for a couple of nights and then one additional night at a forest service campground just east of the pass, allowing me the better part of four days of photography in the area between about Tenaya Lake and the pass, plus some areas east of the pass. I even managed to get down to Mono Lake for one very early morning shoot. For those who haven’t been up there yet this season, this is a very different year in many ways related to climate. It is dry! There is virtually no snow left except in the usual “permanent” areas on the highest peaks, water levels are very low, and overall it looks a lot more like late August or even September. (But look around and you’ll still find wildflowers.) Areas of the forest, especially higher up and near passes, seem to have suffered a lot of damage in a late-2011 wind storm. I’ve never seen so many trees downed by wind as I saw near Tioga Pass on this visit.

Since I was camping in Tuolumne Meadows, one day I used the midday hours that are less conducive to photography to scout a few locations along the Tuolumne River. I wandered down from camp, across the meadows, and over towards Soda Springs. From here I picked out a few likely prospects for evening photography – a bend in the river with some interesting trees, a large boulder that might front a photograph of the Cockscomb, and a few others. That evening I returned, hoping for interesting lighting. It was one of those evenings that held the possibility of very interesting sunset and post-sunset light. There were dissipating clouds above the Sierra crest, some clouds directly overhead, and clearing to the west. These conditions can allow light to shine up under the clouds from the west at sunset, and can produce intensely colorful displays. I never know for sure that this will happen, but I know that the conditions increase the chances a great deal… so I’m willing to be there and ready to photograph if it does happen. On this evening it didn’t quite happen. It was a lovely evening and there were colors, but nothing tremendously out of the (relatively nice) ordinary. During the last few minutes of color I was thinking about how there was nothing to the west that could make a photograph that included the light appearing that direction, when I happened to look down on the surface of the river to see this rock and these patterns on the surface of the water.

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

Tree, Fractured Sandstone Wall

June 29, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A lone tree stands against the fractured textures of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park, Utah.

Time for one more Zion photograph. Actually, it may not be quite the last from this April visit to that park and other beautiful areas of Utah. It almost doesn’t matter exactly where this photograph was made, since red rock and green trees can be found all over the area. Basically we were driving along a park road in the afternoon, with eyes wide open and looking about for photographic subjects, when we stopped alongside a section of the cliff that was still mostly in the shade, and in front of which beautiful trees were growing.

I liked the conjunction of the hard, reddish rock with its vertical cracks and horizontal patterns… with a single living thing, the very green tree growing up against the cliff face in the shade. Sometimes the colors of the rock can seem almost unreal. I feel a bit that way now when I look at the intense red-yellow colors in the upper right corner of the frame.

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

Sandstone, Cliff-Dwelling Plants

June 21, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A few plants grow in cracks in the face of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park, Utah.

This is most certainly not an “icon” photograph of Zion! It is essentially a nondescript little bit of high country sandstone with a few plants, photographed along the Mount Carmel highway through the park in a spot where a shadowed cliff face was washed with light reflected from another rocky face behind me and on the opposite side of a narrow section of the canyon. This softer and more diffused light filled the shadowed areas yet was warmer in color than the very early- and late-day light that can also be as soft.

I’m used to seeing these examples of desert plants that seem barely alive, consisting largely of tough and dry branches and often not having much green at all. I see such things a lot, for example, when I photograph in Death Valley or in some of the high desert areas east of the Sierra. What was new to me here was the juxtaposition of these dry country plants with the rich, warm tones of the southwest sandstone.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Leaves and Red Metal Door

June 13, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Leaves grow against a red metal roll-up door in the Fremont District of Seattle, Washington.

In early May I was in the Seattle area of three days on non-photographic business, and fairly busy with those other affairs for much of time that I was there. However, when I happened to mention online that I was in that area, someone let me know that there was going to be a “Seattle Photowalk” the next evening. The plan was to meet in the Fremont area (“under the statue of Lenin” – it’s a long story…) and then wander about for the next four hours, ending up at the Gas Works Park at sunset. I couldn’t pry open a full four hours in my schedule, but I did manage to find one hour, so I made plans to meet the group.

I arrived at the appointed starting time and place and found a small group of photographers ready to go. After the obligatory group photo (indeed, beneath the statue of Lenin!) we split up and began to photograph. I think that I may have been in Fremont once before, perhaps a dozen or more years ago, since the general area seemed a bit familiar, but as far as photography went I had no specific ideas at all about what I would find. The area does have an interesting “worn” quality – at least the parts that aren’t trendy new corporate buildings – so I figured that I could probably find something. And having only one hour to photograph an area I’d not scouted, I knew that I’d better get to work! It only took me a few minutes – and this is typically true – to get into the “seeing” mode and start to find potential subjects. Shooting mostly with just a 50mm prime I wandered up side streets, alleys, and a few driveways, looking for odd bits of shape and color. This branch was growing across the sliding metal door on a small eating establishment that was apparently closed for the day.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: red

Reflected Evening Sky, Tuolumne River

Tree, Fractured Sandstone Wall

Sandstone, Cliff-Dwelling Plants

Leaves and Red Metal Door

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.