Tag Archives: sage

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

Sandstone Towers, Evening Clouds

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Sandstone Towers, Evening Clouds - Dissipating evening clouds above sandstone formations, Arches National Park, Utah
Dissipating evening clouds above sandstone formations, Arches National Park, Utah

Sandstone Towers, Evening Clouds. Arches National Park, Utah. April 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dissipating evening clouds above sandstone formations, Arches National Park, Utah.

On our first early April evening in Arches National Park, we ended up at what the NPS map calls the “Windows Section.” This is an area of long sandstone ridges and many arches, including North and South Windows, Turret Arch and more. We really didn’t quite know where we were going, but we could tell that the day was waning and that we needed to find a spot to shoot the evening light – and this are was close and seemed to hold some potential. We drove the end of the road, quickly unloaded, and headed off to see what we could find.

I started by going back down the road a ways to photograph more open terrain to the west along with a row of sandstone features running to the north. I quickly figured out – duh! – that is was very windy! This isn’t a major problem as long as the light is good, but I knew that it was going to be a challenge as the diminishing light eventually called for longer exposures. I then wandered up toward Turret Arch and the South Window, looking for likely compositions. I made a few initial exposures before the sun dropped below the horizon, the light soon began to fade to that wonderful period just after sunset when everything can take on a sort of rich glow when the conditions are just right. Some dissipating clouds were adding to the glow and making the light and the sky more interesting… but that wind wasn’t diminishing a bit! Even with a solid tripod and head, when using a somewhat large lens and long exposures there will be issues with camera stability. This limited my range of motion a bit, as finding spots that provided some shelter from the strongest gusts became a consideration along with the usual compositional issues. With that in mind, I ended up mostly foregoing the major features here and instead turned my attention to the sky and to a cluster of sandstone formations to the east of the main arches… and that is what you see in this photograph.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Moonrise, Clouds, and Sandstone Towers

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Moonrise, Clouds, and Sandstone Towers - The full moon rises through thin clouds above sandstone towers, Arches National Park.
The full moon rises through thin clouds above sandstone towers, Arches National Park.

Moonrise, Clouds, and Sandstone Towers. Arches National Park, Utah. April 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The full moon rises through thin clouds above sandstone towers, Arches National Park.

This was a very challenging evening for photography, but I’m happy with some of the results nonetheless. We had gone into Arches National Park and made it to the first big group of arches and other formations not far from what I recall was identified as Balancing Rock. Not far from here there is an impressive amphitheater of red rock sandstone, and all through this area a truly astonishing number of arches of various forms and sizes may be found. Since it was late in the day, we figured we would stake out our ground for golden hour and dusk shots right around here.

However, there were a few challenges. First, we were arriving at this spot for the very first time, with no previous research, and it was basically time to start shooting right about now! There was little to no time for scouting, so I headed up a trail towards a likely looking area of sandstone to see what I could find as the sunset approached. I soon discovered a second issue, or perhaps realized that an issue I had known about was going to be more challenging than I had hoped – it was very windy! As the light dims this becomes more of a problem as exposures necessarily lengthen. At some point, there is virtually no tripod that is steady enough, even when weighted, to hold a camera and lens rock steady in a near gale. I have some tricks up my sleeve though, and eventually I searched out some camera positions that were sheltered by rock towers and walls. By this time, the sun had dropped below the horizon and I was now shooting it twilight, which can provide some of the most beautiful light of the day when the right sort of “glow” occurs. It turned out that the full moon was just rising, though not over the main, iconic formations. There is usually a narrow window of exposure opportunity for photographing the moon. The moon is hard to shoot effectively in full daylight, but after dark it is far too bright for the ambient light – so one ideal is to shoot it in this time right around dusk when there is just the right balance of moon light and ambient light. Lucky for me, high thin clouds moved across the sky to the east and moderated the brightness of the full moon, allowing me to continue shooting in darker conditions so that I could make this exposure of the moon rising above nearby sandstone formations.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Fractured Sandstone Cliff, Plants

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Fractured Sandstone Cliff, Plants - Plants grow among craks of a fractured sandstone cliff, Zion National Park
Plants grow among cracks of a fractured sandstone cliff, Zion National Park

Fractured Sandstone Cliff, Plants. Zion National Park, Utah. April 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Plants grow among cracks of a fractured sandstone cliff, Zion National Park.

On my first morning in Zion (we had arrived there the previous afternoon) we headed up into the park and Zion Canyon, though which the Virgin River flows. Although I was more or less not looking for icons to photograph, I had stopped along the way to photograph that icon, the view of the Watchman from the bridge on the Mt. Carmel highway. (At least I could console myself that I was not shooting it at the usual sunset time, but instead in the early morning. ;-) After a brief stop for that purpose, I headed up the canyon with a plan of visiting the Weeping Rocks and seeing what sort of photographs might be possible there.

After a short walk up to the rocks, I figured out that it wasn’t going to quite be my photographic “cup of tea.” However, along this walk I did find some other interesting subjects. One that I’ve shared previously was a very close view of some brand new spring leaves on the trees that grow along the trail. Another subject was the nearby sandstone cliffs that here come down close to the level of the trail. One area nearby featured immense vertical blocks of the striking red sandstone, with interesting crack systems and some plants growing in the cracks. I made several exposures of this area in full shade, and this vertical composition is one that I like a lot. I’ve probably said this before and I’ll no doubt mention it again, but for a guy who is so used to shooting the equally impressive but much less colorful granite of the Sierra, the colors of these rocks proved irresistible! And the color variations are amazing – here you can see some areas where the color trends toward purple.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Sandstone Tower and Cliff, Morning

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Sandstone Tower and Cliff, Morning - A nearby sandstone tower backed by a more distant cliff face in morning light, Zion National Park.
A nearby sandstone tower backed by a more distant cliff face in morning light, Zion National Park.

Sandstone Tower and Cliff, Morning. Zion National Park, Utah. April 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A nearby sandstone tower backed by a more distant cliff face in morning light, Zion National Park.

If you look at the photograph that I posted yesterday, you can probably locate almost the entire composition of this photograph contained within the earlier one. This perhaps illustrates one or more things about how I sometimes think when making photographs. One approach that I think I use quite a bit is to try to isolate small sections within much larger landscapes. If you look at yesterday’s image, you’ll see that it uses a fairly familiar sort of approach, namely to include a fairly large swath of “stuff” from close to far away within the frame. Today’s image, though, eliminates out all of that other stuff that might provide a wider context and instead just “shows” one small, interesting bit of the larger scene. And, obviously, I used a longer lens – something else that I often do when shooting landscape. I’m most certainly not one of those photographers who buys into the notion that “landscape photography is done with wide-angle lenses!” I also like juxtapositions. In this scene there are perhaps quite a few – and you might even see some that I’m unaware of. There are color juxtapositions the bright green at the bottom against the very different tones of the rocks; the brighter reddish rocks in the foreground against the darker and more blue or even purple tones of the more distant rocks; the clarity of the close and sunlit red rocks against the lower contrast and somewhat haze-obstructed character of the distant cliff.

The location is in the Virgin River drainage of Zion Canyon. One person described it as “Yosemite in red,” and now that I have been there I can certainly see why! While the overall scale of this valley is smaller than that of Yosemite, the verticality of the place is just as stunning. In fact, in some ways, because the walls are closer and because of the wild colors, it may be more stunning. (Of course, Yosemite does have those waterfalls… and some crazy dome formations… and the massive scale of features like El Capitan. I digress… ;-) The smaller scale makes some kinds of photography perhaps a bit easier. For example, those “juxtapositions” I mentioned above can be fine tune a bit more readily by moving the camera position a few feet. (I did that here as I moved the camera a bit to get three trees way up on the far cliff to line up to the left of the upper section of the closer formation on the right side of the frame. Ironically, you probably didn’t even see them until I mentioned that… ;-)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.