Tag Archives: rugged

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

Sliding Rock, Cloudy Morning – Racetrack Playa

April 14, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 5 Comments

Black and white photograph of a “sliding rock” on a cloudy morning at the Racetrack Playa, Death Valley National Park, California.

The weather gods were not on my side during my visit to the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley near the end of March. My plan was to shoot sunset and sunrise, and in between to do night photography. As I drove out there on the terrible washboard gravel road my hopes were high – I saw some interesting looking clouds that looked like they might even form into lenticular clouds. When I arrived I shot a bit in decent light at the “Grandstand” feature near the north end of the playa.

Unfortunately, the good light was short-lived. Before I left the Grandstand a high, thin back of clouds spread across the sky. It stayed in the evening (tantalizing me with some bits of clear sky far to the west), blocked the full moon all night, and was still there when I wandered out onto the playa in the morning to do some early shots. It never did really clear, and I came back from the playa with far fewer good images than I expected. (I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’ve had uniform great luck with lighting on every previous visit, so I was probably due for less than great light.)

In order to make this photograph work I did quite a bit of post-processing, some of which I anticipated when I made the exposure. First of all, I realized that getting everything from the very close rock to the distant ridge in focus would be a problem. So I made three exposures, “focus bracketing” them with one focus on the far ridge, one focused on the rock, and one focused in between. I made a blend of the three exposures in post, keeping the most focused portions of each.

Because the light and colors were fairly flat I decided to go with a black and white interpretation. The conversion was fairly straightforward, but here I also decided to indulge in a bit of post-processing. I duplicated the background layer, turned it into and “overlay,” and added some Gaussian blur. With a bit of dodging, burning, and work with curves, the image ended up where I imagined it would.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM at 80mm
ISO 200, f/16, 1/10 second

keywords: sliding, moving, gliding, rock, stone, racetrack, race, track, playa, cracked, mud, earth, ground, cloudy, mountain, hill, barren, desert, rugged, track, trail, black and white, monochrome, death valley, national, park, california, usa, north america, landscape, nature, travel, scenic, stock

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

Eroded Terrain Near Natural Bridge Canyon

April 10, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Rugged and eroded terrain near the entrance to Natural Bridge Canyon in morning light at Death Valley National Park, California.

Natural Bridge Canyon is located at the foot of the Amargosa Range Black Hills just a short distance north of the popular Badwater area. As is typical of many of the canyon entrances in Death Valley, the approach is by leaving the main road paralleling the edge of the Valley and driving up a large alluvial fan on a gravel road towards the hills. The road ends and the canyon quickly narrows.

This photograph was made along this gravel approach road and shows a bit of the fan in the foreground, the cliffs alongside the was in the middle distance, and beyond that the convoluted and colorful strata of the lower section of the mountain range, here with low-angle back light from the morning sun coming from the other side of the mountains. This photograph also shows something that I found remarkable on this visit, namely the incredible profusion of plant life that was coming to live in the wake of some unusually heavy rain fall earlier in the season. During normal years and during most of the year even in wet years you’ll see almost no green at all on terrain like this aside from a few small and isolated bushes. But on this late-March visit there was plant life springing up everywhere. When I looked closely I could find a fringe of green almost everywhere. Here, not only is there obvious growth in the gravel of the wash at the bottom of the frame, but there is a fringe of green along the edges of the cliff and even in the far distance on the higher slopes.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM at 73mm
ISO 200, f/13, 1/40 second

keywords: death valley, national, park, california, usa, north america, scenic, travel, nature, desert, rugged, erosion, eroded, mountains, hill, cliff, gully, wash, pink, strata, layer, green, plant, growth, spring, rock, morning, light, natural, bridge, canyon, landscape, nature, stock, plants, rock, gravel, red, black, amargosa

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

Cliff House, Winter Surf

February 7, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Cliff House, Winter Surf. San Francisco, California. January 31, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.

Black and white photograph of Pacific Ocean winter surf at the Cliff House, San Francisco, California.

This was not what I was supposed to photograph on the final day of January. I went to San Francisco to visit my son and then do some street/urban photograph while walking around the city. I expected that we might start in the Mission where he lives – and we actually sort of did, beginning with breakfast at Tartine Bakery. After finishing up we were deciding whether to head toward downtown on foot or catch BART, and I mentioned that since I had my car he might want to go to someplace farther away. He suggest Sutro Baths over in the Cliff House and Ocean Beach area, so off we went.

Although I’ve seen lots of interesting photography from this location – especially some interesting night photography work – I had not photographed there before. The baths are the ruins of what were once apparently some large facilities right next to the rugged shoreline here, but today little remains besides foundations, some low walls, and some remaining pools. I was a bit surprised to find the surf raging; I hadn’t thought it would be an especially high surf day since this was during a lull between storms.

Before long I spotted some of my favorite seascape conditions, bright reflections on the the wild Pacific Ocean winter surf, backlit by sun shining through fog and haze. Although I had no tripod I went ahead and shot some hand held seascapes. I’ve previously mentioned that I don’t always know while shooting whether or not photographs will end up in black and white, but with these I was pretty certain from the beginning. The building in the upper left is the Cliff House, the most recent iteration of a facility that has stood here for a long time.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: san francisco, california, usa, sutro, baths, cliff, ocean, sea, coast, shore, pacific, surf, travel, scenic, landscape, seascape, wave, swell, spray, bluff, restaurant, building, architecture, historic, rocks, crash, cloud, sky, winter, storm, rugged, stock

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Titus Canyon

February 3, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Black and white photograph of Titus Canyon, Death Valley National Park, California.

This photograph was made on a trip to Death Valley a couple of years ago – I pulled it up recently while working on a post about photographing Death Valley at my web site. Titus Canyon is known for the lower section which is a very narrow and deep slot canyon with a road through it. The road is a spectacular drive, starting east of Death Valley near Rhyolite and Beatty, crossing the mountain range along the east side of Death Valley, descending steep canyons on the west side, passing though the very deep and narrow lower section, and finally emerging into Death Valley. I regard the route as one of the most spectacular drives that I’ve seen – though it isn’t an easy drive. You’ll want a vehicle with good ground clearance, 4WD is advised, and those unnerved by steep and winding gravel roads that sometimes pass across very exposed areas might think twice about driving it. (As of this writing, Titus Canyon has been closed by flooding during the recent southern California storms.)

This photograph was made in the lower portion of the canyon, but above the slot canyon section near where the canyon emerges into Death Valley. The mountains seen in the distance are on the other side of Death Valley and far to the west.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: titus, canyon, road, cliff, rocks, sky, clouds, trees, bushes, plants, desert, grapevine, mountains, landscape, scenic, travel, drive, california, usa, death valley, national park, stock, curve, rugged, desert, road

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