Tag Archives: river

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

Escalante River, Cottonwood Trees, Autumn

December 29, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Large cottonwood trees with autumn leaves along the Escalante River, Utah

In many places like this one along the Escalante, the terrain seems to be largely a continuous repetition of one horseshoe bend after another, and each bend encourages me to want to see what will be ahead. When the river bends one way, the bottom of the canyon may be in sunlight; when it bends the other – and perhaps narrows around the apex of the bend – everything may be in deep shadow from the tall cliffs above the narrow canyon. In these bends it is often necessary to cross back and forth across the stream as the canyon narrows. (That ritual was a new one to me as a long-time Sierra Nevada hiker and backpacker. There a stream crossing or two in a day would typically be about it, and we tend to make a big deal out of them. Here you might cross a stream more than a dozen times in less than a mile!)

The location of this photograph was at one of those crossing points. The trail approached my camera position from up the canyon and around the bend along the right (from this point of view) side of the stream, crossed the river down among the trees, and then headed across a low hill to the left that skirted between the river and the base of the cliffs. When I arrived at this point and walked underneath this wildly colorful group of cottonwoods, I thought I’d like to find a way to photograph them, the river, and the dark upper canyon. So, before wading through the water I went ahead a bit and climbed up on a sort of ledge to this overlook from which I had a good view up the canyon. Because it was a partly cloudy day, the light here was in a constant state of change. When the clouds moved overhead, the canyon and the trees become quite dark. But a moment later the cloud would pass on and the sun lit the golden trees so brightly that it was almost impossible to photograph them and keep any light in the background canyon. So I watched and waited and made this exposure when the clouds partially obscured the direct sun, but still let in enough light to brighten the trees and cast soft shadows on the bank of the stream.

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.

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

Cottonwood Trees and Cloud-Filled Sky

December 27, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Massive old cottonwood trees silhouetted against the cloud-filled autumn sky, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

This photograph was a sort of passing whimsy, in a sense. In this particular canyon that we visited in late October, our attention as mostly focused on avoiding inclusion of the sky in the frame. For the most part, the tall cliff walls were almost the default background for many photographs, so I paid little attention to the sky, for the most part, except to contrive ways to keep its distracting solid blue out of the frame, where it would distract from the colors and shapes and textures of rock and trees and water.

But when I came straight up to this tree just before we entered a narrow section of the canyon, it is was impossible ignore. It is actually a single tree that splits into two twin trunks near its base, with each trunk then sprouting a group of curving, twisting and interlocking branches high above the ground. With this subject, out in the open as it was, photographing it against the background of rock would not have worked, and it was so tall that I was essentially forced to shoot it with the camera pointing up. Fortunately, there were interesting clouds in the sky, and even more fortuitously the lines in the clouds roughly lined up with the left half of the v-shape of the two converging ridges down that canyon. Even better, this shallow “v” of the canyon rims and low peaks beyond echoed and cradled the somewhat similar shape found in the upper branches of the tree.

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: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Wildlife

Trumpeter Swans and Clouds

December 19, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Four trumpeter swans on a raining day in Skagit Valley, Washington

I visited the Seattle area in early December for mostly non-photographic purposes, but found myself with with an open schedule on the day when my departing flight was not scheduled to leave until evening. I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to do some photography, so I considered street photography in downtown Seattle (plus a museum visit). Then I remembered that I had shot in Skagit Valley last year at roughly the same time and had found lots of interesting birds to photograph – trumpeter swans, eagles, snow geese, and more.

On this trip I wasn’t exactly equipped for bird photography, at least not the sort I would usually do, but I did have a 70-200mm zoom and I know it is possible to make interesting bird photographs with such a lens. So I was up fairly early for the one hour drive north. It rained off and on during my drive, and it was still mostly cloudy and gray when I arrived to find trumpeter swans in their usual spots on the winter fields. (Later I would also find some snow geese, but I’ll save that story for now.) Typically, I would photograph this subject with my 100-400mm zoom, but having nothing longer than 200mm in my bag, I had to think a bit differently about how to photograph these birds. Several strategies worked. One was to use my rental car as a “blind” and slowly and carefully position myself where they might be close enough to photograph with that lens. Another approach was to basically shoot landscape, but include the birds in the scene. The third option, used in this photograph, was to find a spot along one of the country roads where the birds were likely to pass directly overhead or nearly so and wait. These birds have a style of flight that somehow reminds me of a very large jetliner. The use a very low angle take-off, seeming almost as if they are too massive to climb much faster. But once in flight they are beautiful and graceful with their long necks and generally smooth mode of flight. In this photograph I watched as they passed in front of darker rain clouds before making the exposure, isolating the birds against the clouds and with no frame of reference on the ground.

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Autumn Color, Escalante River

December 6, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cottonwood tree fall color below sandstone cliffs along the Escalante River, Utah

This is another photograph made on our second attempt to photograph this area during the last half of October, 2012. The first time had been a day that was a beautiful one in many ways, but a photographically problematic one in others – with cold, very strong winds, clouds, and even a bit of rain. So nearly a week later we found ourselves back in the same general area and we decided to give it another try. This turned out to be a good decision, as all of those factors that had impeded photography the first time were now gone, and we had beautiful light, good fall colors, almost no wind.

There are many things that appeal to me about photographing in this kind of country. The rock itself is high on the list, for its range of intense colors along with the fact that it is the source of the many beautiful and compelling canyons that are found here. The fall foliage is another factor. After my Sierra Nevada colors have mostly gone (at least on the east side where the aspens grow) the low elevation colors of oak, maple, box elder, and cottonwood reach their peak. Other plants produce their own unique and sometimes subtle effects – such as the widely varied coloration of the tamarisk plants, which can include everything from black and gray through blue to yellow, red, and even purple. But above all is the quality of the light in these places, especially when it bounces down from high rock faces to light the depths of narrow canyons, taking on the coloration of the higher rocks, softening the lighting below, and often producing a glowing effect that must be seen to be believed. The light in this photograph is such light, reflected from a very large and sun-lit face to the left of my camera position.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: river

Escalante River, Cottonwood Trees, Autumn

Trumpeter Swans and Clouds

Autumn Color, Escalante River

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