Tag Archives: red

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

Plants and Fractured Granite

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Plants and Fractured Granite
Plants and Fractured Granite

Plants and Fractured Granite. Yosemite National Park, California. September 15, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Various rain-moistened plants growing in a fracture in lichen-encrusted glacial granite slabs, Yosemite National Park.

This photograph was made in almost exactly the same spot as the photograph I posted yesterday, in an area of water-stained granite along the Tuolumne River in Yosemite National Park. Not only was I fortunate to have soft light, but it was cloudy and it had been raining lightly just before we went out to shoot. You can’t ask for much better conditions for such a subject: soft light from the clouds, colors saturated by the moisture, and a few small drops of rain still on the leaves of the plants. (The latter may not quite be visible in this little jpg image.)

I’m always on the lookout for this little intimate landscapes, especially if they include Sierra granite. I had been wandering around this area trying to find ways to make compositions out of the reddish and rain-moistened rock, shooting trees and small plants and even a few isolated rocks. This plant was growing out of a narrow crack and hanging downward, its green contrasting with the reddish-brown color of the rocks . The arrangement of the nearly vertical crack, the diagonal boundaries between the red rock and the gray rock, and the mottled texture of the lichen also caught my eye.

When I share a photograph like this one, I’m reminded of my friend Mike, a retired Yosemite ranger, who pointedly reminded me once that sometimes there really is no good reason to name the precise location of such a scene. The location is irrelevant to the photograph, similar little scenes are repeated thousands of times over throughout the Sierra, and it isn’t really about the specific place at all.

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: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Tree and Stained Granite

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Tree and Stained Granite
Tree and Stained Granite

Tree and Stained Granite. Yosemite National Park, California. September 15, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A small tree grows from a crack in red-stained granite slabs, Yosemite National Park.

Back in mid-September of this year I joined a group of five other photographers for a bit more than a week of photography in the High Sierra back-country of Yosemite National Park, going out along the Tuolumne River and spending some significant time in two locations and having several days to photograph at each of them. The first few days were spent along the Tuolumne in a place where a short hike led to a beautiful bowl of smooth granite slabs interrupted by some trees and stained by seepage from a band of reddish rocks above. In some ways this might have seemed like a tricky spot to photograph since it is in the bottom of a canyon and the light is blocked to the east and somewhat blocked to the west. But I like the indirect light found in shaded areas after dawn and before sunset, so I went back to this area on at least three days to photograph in this diffused, soft light.

The rocks are part of a large area of granite slabs that this non-geologist assumes were carved and smoothed by glaciers traveling down from the peaks above the Tuolumne area. In this spot the formations include large areas of smooth and curved granite surfaces, areas that have been pock-marked by erosion and water, cracks of various sizes ranging from incipient to gigantic, and trees and other plants growing anywhere they can find footing: tiny cracks, larger cracks like this one, collections of sand and debris in low spots, and so on. I came back to this tree and some of its neighbors several times and came to think of it as the “bonsai tree.”

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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Detail, Red Cathedral

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Detail, Red Cathedral
“Detail, Red Cathedral” — The eroded and fluted face of the Red Cathedral, Zabriski Point, Death Valley National Park.

I have recently posted other photographs made in the area of Zabriskie Point in Death Valley, including one other of this feature sometimes known as the Red Cathedral. It stands to the right of the more famous and recognizable parts of the Zabriskie Point Landscape where, for example, Manley Beacon is one of the most well-known visual icons in the park.

This detail photograph was made using a long lens very shortly after the first morning light had arrived on this feature. In my experience, getting good light on Red Cathedral can be a tricky thing. Parts of it face away from the sun and towards Death Valley and because its face is deeply fluted it can be tricky avoiding blocked shadows. But increasing exposure too much creates problems with saturated colors on the brightest strata that cut through its face. If you shoot it in the morning, light somewhat softened by some high clouds can be helpful, and that is what I had on this morning – the sun light is direct, but it is also filtered a bit by passing through broken clouds to the east.

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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

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

First Light on Zabriskie Point Hills

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First Light on Zabriskie Point Hills
First Light on Zabriskie Point Hills

First Light on Zabriskie Point Hills. Death Valley National Park, California. April 3, 2009. © Copyright 2009 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The first morning light touches hills at Zabriskie Point with ridges of the Panamint Range visible in the distance, Death Valley National Park, California.

When I visit Death Valley – typically, at least once each year – I usually try to seek out some of the less iconic scenes. However, I still do visit the icons, too. And Zabriskie Point at dawn may be the best known and perhaps the most photographed “icon” in the park. When I do go to Zabriskie it is usually for one of two reasons. First, if the light or conditions are truly special, I’ll be there with everyone else when the sun comes up! Second, I have a vague project to try to photograph aspects of Zabriskie that are different from the icon views across Gower Gulch or of Manley Beacon. This photographs sort of fits into that second category.

Those who have photographed here more than once become acquainted with the way that the morning light typically unfolds at Zabriskie. The pre-dawn light begins to softly light the entire scene, and before long the very first dawn light strikes the highest ridges of the Panamint Range on the opposite side of the Valley to the west. This light works its way down the face of that range, gradually illuminating the ridges and valleys of the range and spreading horizontally. It then begins to hit the Valley floor and works its way east and closer to Zabriskie and the rest of the ranges along the east side of the Valley. Although the closest hills are in shadow, one can almost sense the beams of light over head that are reaching into the Valley and sense that the angle of this light is gradually working down toward the closest ridges. Then the first light appears on the higher features around Zabriskie Point, at first soft but quickly increasing in intensity.

This photograph was made at this moment when that firs light arrives. The subject is a darker and rugged ridge that rises between the usual vantage points and the backdrop of the distant Panamint range, which in this photograph is somewhat obscured by the hazy atmosphere on a day when giant dust storms were just beginning to develop further north in the Valley.

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.