Tag Archives: sand

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Dunes and Sky

May 25, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light and clouds, sand dunes, Death Valley National Park

For photographers (and probably for others, too) sand dunes are a source of endless fascination. There is always something interesting, from the smallest scale (footprints of insects?) to the largest, all-compassing landscape. None of this is ever the same twice except in the most general ways. While the general configuration remains from year to year, the specific details change quickly, sometimes as you watch. And because the sand itself is a fairly neutral subject, the effects of light — its angles and qualities and colors — play out in unending ways on the dunes.

As is typical, we had wandered out amongst the dunes before sunrise, beginning to photograph in predawn light and then moving to larger landscape subjects as the first pink sunlight struck distant desert mountains. Before long the sun was up and the light began to lose the early hour color. This can make the scene extremely stark and harsh, but on this morning high clouds muted its intensity and we continued to photograph. I had a vague idea of a photograph combining dune textures and sky in a mostly abstract form, and this area of the dunes provided a subject that fit that concept.

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

Dust Storm, Desert Mountains

May 24, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A spring dust storm obscures the Panamint Mountains, Death Valley

This was a remarkable day in Death Valley, from dawn until dusk, though it was not entirely an easy day to be there. We began very early on a ridge high in the Panamint Mountains, where we went to photograph sunrise. This was not the iconic brilliantly colorful sunrise that one might hope for, but it was more remarkable in many ways. There was a milky translucence in the atmosphere produced by some combination of light and dust, the latter being the precursor to a huge dust storm that would envelop the area later in the day. Later in the morning we explored other remote areas of Panamints before eventually deciding that we would start back down into Death Valley, where we were staying.

While still high in the mountains we began to notice the telltale signs that dust storms were imminent. Brown streamers of dust began to appear high above us, unusual for this high in the mountains, and though we could not see the Valley we began to recognize what was happening. As we descended the dust thickened, and by the time we joined up with the main road into the Valley the dust was thick, obscuring even nearby mountains such as those in this photograph. We continued on, and before long the wind was howling and dust was everywhere. I’ve been in dust storms before, but I was surprised when for a brief moment the dust turned to sand and then tiny pebbles began to fall from the sky! We got back to our room and closed up doors and windows — but dust still streamed into the room through any slight crack. Hours later the wind abated and we went outside. There were still clouds of blowing dust, but we could see some breaks… and rain clouds moving in! Before long showers were passing through the dust storm, creating one of the most apocalyptic landscapes I’ve ever seen.

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

Autumn Leaves, Sandstone

April 6, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn leaves lie on the sandstone in a high country creek bed, Zion National Park

Every so often I decide to dig back through my older file archives from previous years, and I almost always discover photographs that I had forgotten, that perhaps didn’t resonate at the time, or were part of batches of images that I someone never quite finished reviewing. This is one of those. It comes from a lengthy autumn trip to various places in Zion with a group of friends back in 2012.

I made this photograph in Zion National Park, but it could have been made in uncounted numbers of places in Utah — it has the basic ingredients: patterned and worn sandstone plus leaves. This scene is as I found it, a small vignette of leaves, some in colors matching those of the sandstone and couple yellow enough to stand out from the background.

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

Leaf and Sand

November 23, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An autumn leaf in the sand of a California north coast beach

In many ways the spectacular and rugged Pacific ocean coastline of Northern California is a landscape of huge scale, from the ocean itself to the long views of rocky cliffs, shoreline bluffs, coastal mountain ranges, sea stacks, clouds and fog. I love this country and many of my photographs of this landscape focus on these very things.

But sometimes I do look down at my feet as well. On this afternoon we had stopped at a beach where the road dropped down to nearly the water level and the wintry ocean was wild with the energy of a passing storm, producing surf and swells so large that it seemed that we looked up at them. I wandered out toward the waterline and began to photograph the surf and some sea stacks that stood in the path of the waves. As I turned to walk down the beach I happened to look down and see this autumn leaf, stuck in the sand near the high water mark, with the faintly visible paths of water that had detoured around the leaf on its way back into the ocean.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sand

Dunes and Sky

Autumn Leaves, Sandstone

Leaf and Sand

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