Tag Archives: rock

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

Beneath The Overhang

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Beneath The Overhang
High overhanging walls of a narrow desert canyon, Death Valley National Park.

Beneath The Overhang. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

High overhanging walls of a narrow desert canyon, Death Valley National Park.

This is a remarkable spot in a lovely desert canyon in Death Valley National Park. After hiking up a wash for some distance and navigating around a minor impediment, the path suddenly enters the “narrows” — sections of the canyon with very high walls only feet apart where little light manages to find its way down from above. Entering the soft light, shades, and quiet of these places is always a special experience.

I have presented almost all of my photographs from my recent pair of visits to the park as color photographs. It is hard to forego color with these subjects, given the remarkable variations in the color of the landscape and the light in the desert. But here I felt that a black and white rendition made sense and suggested those characteristic feelings from being in this deep canyon.

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

Canyon Bend

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Photo of Death Valley slot canyon
“Canyon Bend” — A bend in the canyon narrows, Death Valley National Park.

Slot canyons and “narrows” are among the most compelling desert landscapes. Desert landscapes tend to be exposed, open to the sky and wind, and blasted by the midday sun. The space seems horizontally oriented, often with a distant horizon and perhaps low mountains rising from playas. The canyons contrast almost every way. They are places of shade, protected from wind, and the distant horizontal views are cut off, replaced by close surfaces covered with angles and curves.

There are many small canyons in Death Valley National Park, and they may be among its least-known and most interesting features. A few are popular, but most are off the beaten path and some are downright difficult to get to. Their lonely quality is part of the charm, and I hope it stays that way. This spot presents a fascinating combination of the blue-light, shadowed stratified walls, the water stained face in the warmer light above, and the canyon floor covered in gravel washed down by flowing water.

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

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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.