Tag Archives: salt

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

Desert Hills and Salt Flats, Morning

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Desert Hills and Salt Flats, Morning
Desert hills on a giant alluvial fan dropping to Death Valley salt flats

Desert Hills and Salt Flats, Morning. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Desert hills on a giant alluvial fan dropping to Death Valley salt flats.

Each time I visit Death Valley ‚ and when visiting certain other challenging landscapes, I’m reminded that my memories tend to focus on the most pleasant, easiest, and most beautiful scenes… and that there are a lot of intervening periods when the photography can be quite challenging. I had to remind myself of that on this morning, as it began with extremely unpromising light. The sky was largely overcast, there was some bluish haze in the air, and sunrise came with barely any warming of the color at all. But you (almost) never know whether such light may turn into something more interesting… so you try to stick with it and be ready.

A bit later, around the time when I might typically be starting to think of concluding my early morning photography on an easier day, the clouds began to thin and move into better positions, and areas of light started to play across the landscape. As I often do in such conditions, I remained in a high place with a panoramic view of the immense landscape, putting a long lens on the camera so that I could make photographs of small areas where the light seemed more interesting. The dark hills low in the frame sit on the giant alluvial wash leading down to the salt playa of death valley, where the landscape eventually fades into the distant haze.

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 and Amazon.

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

Death Valley, Panamint Foothills, Morning

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Death Valley, Panamint Foothills, Morning
Morning sunlight on Death Valley hills and the foothills of the Panamint Mountains

Death Valley, Panamint Foothills, Morning. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning sunlight on Death Valley hills and the foothills of the Panamint Mountains.

One’s orientation to “landscape” may manifest in many ways — a focus on the large or the small, an approach that implies objective realism or one that embraces subjectivity, the discovery of new landscapes or the deeper exploration of those already known, an interest in ostensibly “untouched” subjects or attention to those affected by the human presence, and more. Death Valley is diverse enough for any of these, but I often find myself focusing on the largest scale subjects. The place is huge, and at the right hours, in the right seasons, and in the right places the park is a place of deep silence and immense stillness.

This was the last morning of my most recent visit, and I went out alone very early, heading to a place that afforded a somewhat elevated perspective. As I traveled there I was not optimistic about the prospects for the morning — the sky was mostly overcast, there was a bluish haze in the air, and even the earliest light was blocked by clouds to the east. But one thing I relearn nearly every time I go out is that if you go out enough and are persistent enough, things happen, and sometimes they happen at the least likely times. As this morning wore on, some time after the first light that could have been colorful, the sun began to break through the clouds, and areas of light and shadow moved across this immense landscape. As I made this photograph the light was shining on the foothills of the Panamint Range, many miles away and on the far side of Death Valley.

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 and Amazon.

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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert

From Panamints To Death Valley

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From Panamints To Death Valley
The view down into Death Valley from high along the summit of the Panamint Mountains

From Panamints To Death Valley. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The view down into Death Valley from high along the summit of the Panamint Mountains

Death Valley National Park — like virtually all national parks — contains a few features that have become iconic. These are the places everyone goes, and I probably don’t have to name them here. I would not dismiss such places — many of them, as we say, “are icons for a reason.” When I first visited this part two decades ago, I started with a few of those locations and I was thrilled to do so.

But now, after many, many visits to the place, I have pushed out my boundaries more and more. This is a huge and diverse park, with everything from the familiar low desert to high mountain ranges reaching above 11,000′ of elevation. While the better known locations can be a bit crowded, especially during the ideal season (when it isn’t so hot!), it doesn’t take a lot of exploring to find solitude. The location where I made this photograph isn’t the most isolated in the park, but it does afford a different view of the main valley.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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 and Amazon.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Death Valley, Mountains, Morning

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Death Valley, Mountains, Morning
Morning light on Death Valley and the base of the Panamint Mountain Range

Death Valley, Mountains, Morning. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light on Death Valley and the base of the Panamint Mountain Range

A few recent photographs here have focused on the intimate landscapes of Death Vally canyons. This one leaves the canyon and moves out into the open, looking from the eastern mountains across valley to the base of the Panamint range on the other side. We had driven up in to these mountains in the morning after first photographing dawn from the valley. Here we could watch the morning light traverse the valley — in the photograph it still had not made it to the low hills below our position.

At about the time of my first visits to Death Valley I had also made my first trips to Alaska. It may seem odd, given their different climates, but it struck me that the two places have a lot in common. Most of all, in both places I experiences huge spaces and immense quiet and stillness in ways that I had not really known before. (I rarely experience this in the Sierra, even above timberline, since the distances are smaller and somewhere in the landscape there will be a tree.) In Death Vally, it is hard to make sense of the scale of the landscape. The combination of huge distances, tremendously large features, and a dearth of objects of known size conspire to confuse us. Look across flats to a barren mountain and its valleys, it might seem that you could just walk there. You could, perhaps, but it might take many days.

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 and Amazon.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.