Tag Archives: red

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Old Cottonwood and Red Rock Cliffs

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Old Cottonwood and Red Rock Cliffs
An old cottonwood tree, changing to fall colors, stands in front ot a red rock cliff face, Zion National Park.

Old Cottonwood and Red Rock Cliffs. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An old cottonwood tree, changing to fall colors, stands in front ot a red rock cliff face, Zion National Park.

There’s a very good chance that I’ve already said this too many times, but the color palette of the Utah red rock country is simply remarkable. The rocks themselves are astonishingly diverse, ranging from the reddish tones to whites, grays and blacks, and occasionally more exotic colors. The trees and plants, especially as the autumn color change begins, cover a range from grays through greens to yellow, orange, red, and brown. And all of this varies from the bluish tones of early morning and evening through the golden hour saturation and the midday intensity of light. I’ve said it before and I’ll likely repeat myself in the future, but to a Sierra Nevada photographer this can be almost overwhelming.

Early on our second morning in Zion National Park we took a drive that entered the park near Springdale just before dawn. We stopped several times as we began the ascent on the Mt. Carmel highway, first to photograph the intense dawn light and then, a bit later, to photograph this gnarly tree against the backdrop of a shaded canyon wall.

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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Cliff Edge in Sunlight

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Cliff Edge in Sunlight
Sun shines on the sharp edge of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park.

Cliff Edge in Sunlight. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

DescrSun shines on the sharp edge of a sandstone cliff, Zion National Park.iption

Many years ago I was on a two-week backpacking trip through a long section of the Southern Sierra Nevada, covering some of the highest portions of the range on foot. The hike took me across a series of very high passes that were close to 12,000′ hight. In other words, I spent a lot of time in some very rugged and alpine places. I distinctly recall pausing on one of the higher passes to look around and realizing that the entire visible landscape consisted of rock and snow, with not a bit of forest visible to me. That vision of such a raw landscape stuck with me, and I’m always on the look out for such things.

While Zion Canyon is certainly not a place without forests and trees and rivers and lots of other comfortable things, it is possible to find a few ways of viewing this country that reinforce how much of its landscape is built on rock, in this case layers of sedimentary rock laid down, transformed, twisted and tilted over the millennia. This photograph catches the sun-lit edge of a closer buttress (yes, with a few plants!) juxtaposed with another more distant wall in shadow.

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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Trees on Sandstone Cliff

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Trees on Sandstone Cliff
A row of coniferous trees ascends a steep gully on a sandstone cliff face.

Trees on Sandstone Cliff. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A row of coniferous trees ascends a steep gully on a sandstone cliff face.

There is something compelling about individual or small groups of trees growing in unlikely places. It is hard to precisely describe why this is, but my friend Charles Cramer has referred to photographs of them as “brave little tree” images. (I don’t know if Charlie coined the term, but he’s the first person I heard use it.) Perhaps there is something metaphorical about these trees stand in such places, where they are tall and straight like these examples or twisted and stunted by their stark environment. Whatever the reason, I know I’m not the only person attracted to them.

This group of conifers grows high up on a sandstone cliff in Zion National Park, improbably forming a very tine forest in a very difficult place. Such trees, viewed up close, often seem to thrive on almost nothing at all, putting roots down in little more than cracks in the rock. This group rises from a cluster of smaller shrubs and trees to a few larger trees in the widest part of the ledge, and then the trees continue upwards, diminishing in size.

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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature

Red Leaves

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Red Leaves
Red autumn leaves, photographed on a Santa Clara Valley trail.

Red Leaves. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Red autumn leaves, photographed on a Santa Clara Valley trail.

These intensely colorful autumn leaves were along a footpath that I sometimes follow on my neighborhood walks — a regular event during the pandemic era. Mostly I follow sidewalks, but there is a fascinating detour that follow the route of an abandoned rail line that was eventually taken over and upgraded into a walking and cycling path. The foliage along the route is a combination of trees hanging over the fences of nearby properties and newer plantings that are part of the landscaping of this path. I came upon these leaves late on a slightly cloudy day, when the soft light beautifully illuminated the leaves.

The photograph is — once again! — a reminder that we don’t always have to travel to faraway places to make photographs, and that often there are subjects right in our neighborhoods. Carrying a camera in these places tends to make me more attentive to items of visual interest that I would likely not pay much attention to otherwise.

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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.