Tag Archives: river

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

Cottonwood Trees and Red Rock Cliffs

Image Leave a comment
Cottonwood Trees and Red Rock Cliffs
A small grove of tall cottonwood trees beneath a red rock cliff, Zion National Park.

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

A small grove of tall cottonwood trees beneath a red rock cliff, Zion National Park.

Because Zion National Park is so popular, especially the main Zion Canyon along the Virgin River, the Park Service has instituted a shuttle system to carry visitors in and out and from place to place within the canyon. Like all such systems, it has it flaws — hard to get a seat going into the park early in the morning or late in the day leaving, hard to schlep camera equipment in and out — but on balance I think it is a good thing. I’ve been in Zion when the place was crawling with cars — cars on the roads, cars parked everywhere, cars waiting for parking spaces. The bus system improves on that, and I think the inconvenience is worth it for the most part.

We took a very early shuttle all the way up to the entrance to the narrows, the last stop on the route. My photographer instincts said, “Get there early!” These instincts are good, and there is a lot of interesting work to be done in the soft morning light. But photographing in these canyons isn’t the same as photographing, for example, in the open spaces of the Sierra or the desert. In red rock canyon country, the best light often comes later in the morning and well before sunset, when the sun is high enough to directly strike the red canyon walls and reflect that soft, warm light down into the lower reaches of the canyons. With this in mind, we took our time after photographing below the narrows, and rather than getting back on a shuttle we started walking down canyon, enjoying the variety of reflected light… and we repeated the process once again later in the day. I first saw this group of trees very early in the morning, and I made a point of coming back to them later in the day when I knew the reflected light would appear.

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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Sea Stacks, Cliff, and Beach

Image Leave a comment
Sea Stacks, Cliff, and Beach
Morning fog above a beach, cliffs, and sea stacks, and coastal hills, Mendocino, California.

Sea Stacks, Cliff, and Beach. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning fog above a beach, cliffs, and sea stacks, and coastal hills, Mendocino, California.

This photograph is not from this season’s California North Coast adventure — instead it comes from the visit before that during the last June of the pre-pandemic era. Our goal was the farther northern redwood parks, where we hoped to photograph the trees and rhododendrons, but first we stopped further south at Mendocino for a couple of nights.

There are worthy photographic subjects all up and down this remarkable coast, but it isn’t often that I’m so close to them that I can get up in the morning, walk out the door, and five minutes later be standing at the edge of a coastal bluff setting up my tripod. I was out early — of course! — and the area was fairly empty as I framed up this composition that looks toward the river that empties into Mendocino Bay. Morning fog obscured distant features, and the foreground landscape is formed by cliffs, bluffs, and the interaction of shadows, direct light, and the patterns of waves.

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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Afternoon Haze, Ridges

Image Leave a comment
Afternoon Haze, Ridges
Forested ridges, silhouetted in the afternoon Sierra haze, on opposite sides of the Tuolumne River Canyon.

Afternoon Haze, Ridges. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Forested ridges, silhouetted in the afternoon Sierra haze, on opposite sides of the Tuolumne River Canyon.

A group of us were camped at a backcountry lake in Yosemite National Park for the better part of a week a few years back. Actually, we’ve done that a few times now that I think of it. This lake is a quiet and gentle place, surrounded by forest, but with a few nearby peaks and on one side a huge vista into and across a deep river canyon. Our little group photographed the heck out of this place, working the landscape morning and evening, and gradually working outwards to learn more of the surroundings.

On this evening I had hiked up from the lake through a narrow band of forest, then continued to ascend across granite slabs through more open country. Arriving at a high point I turned around and looked back over the basin holding “our” little lake and waited for the colorful evening light. Of course “waiting” doesn’t mean sitting and doing nothing — it means photographing other things, including this other tree-covered rocky ridge running down toward the lake and the further landscape whose details are muted by late-season haze. If you look very closely you might just make a sort of “Where’s Waldo” discovery in this scene….

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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Tuolumne Canyon, September

Image Leave a comment
Tuolumne Canyon, September
Wildfire smoke colors the morning light on domes above the Tuolumne River, Yosemite National Park.

Tuolumne Canyon, September. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Wildfire smoke colors the morning light on domes above the Tuolumne River, Yosemite National Park.

Back in 2014 a group of us spent a week photographing in the Yosemite backcountry. We packed in to our first locations, spent a few days there, then moved along and ended up near the location of this photograph in the canyon of the Tuolumne River. While many have an impression of the Tuolumne formed by its leisurely passage through the Tuolumne Meadows area, other sections present a very different view.

Our stop here coincided with a very destructive wildfire in Little Yosemite Valley, and on the afternoon of our arrival the smoke had block the sun as ash floated down from the sky. Later much of the smoke blew in other directions, yet there was still a general smokiness in the atmosphere. That slightly brown haze colored the light in this early morning view of the canyon of the Tuolumne River.

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.