Tag Archives: sand

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

Red Rock and Roots

April 2, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Long roots extend across Utah sandstone

This was a sort of casual photograph, made while wandering around near our backcountry camp in southern Utah. We arrived in the afternoon, set up camp, and had a bunch of time to kill — time to eat, make plans, hang out, hike, take a nap, and explore. I probably did a bit of all of those things, but eventually decided to take my smaller camera and wander off into the surrounding countryside.

Eventually I ended up ascending a sandstone hill, and from the top I had open views of the surrounding terrain. But the closer subjects were perhaps even more interesting — the curving shapes of the sandstone, the small hollows that were filled with red sand, the plants trying to eke out a living in this spare and rocky area. In several places I found plants that had sent roots or stems over great distances across bare rock, perhaps trying to find pockets of water or moist soil.

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

Dry Bush and Shadow

November 29, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A dried-up bush casts its shadow on a landscape of red rock and sand

This is another “intimate landscape” from the Utah backcountry, one that I spotted after setting up camp and heading out to explore our “back yard,” a nearby landscape of gullies, cottonwoods, a wash, and plenty of sandstone. I took a little walk that was more or less a warm up, a first effort at engaging my ability to see this landscape beyond the most obvious (and quite impressive!) features and to look at smaller things.

I wandered up a wash that passed by our camp, and I soon saw a small sandstone amphitheater at the head of the small valley and off to one side. After spending some time there, I ran into one of my fellow photographers, who mentioned that he had just been up on top of a nearby sandstone dome. That sounded interesting, so I headed over that way, where I found a mostly barren landscape of red rock with sand collected in flat areas, and plants that were trying — and sometimes failing — to find sustenance in this harsh place.

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

Dry Mud and Sand

November 5, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A dry and curled layer of mud atop red sand in the bottom of a Utah canyon

It might be amusing for “normal people” to encounter a group of photographers in the bottom of a narrow Utah canyon, where the photographers might be found clustered attentively and enthusiastically around… dry mud. That was the case here, as a group of use suddenly halted our progress down a small (though much larger later on) canyon to set up tripods, fit just the right lenses, and spend about a half hour making photographs of mud.

However, as is often the case in landscape photography, it turns out that even dried mud may have a lot more going on than a casual glance would suggest. For people who are not particularly conscious of their “seeing,” it would be easy to walk past and think, “that curled mud is very interesting” and not pay much more attention to it. However, a bit of time spent in these narrow canyon walls teaches you to become alert to the possibility that you might be missing certain things. One bit of visual magic in these canyons happens during the middle part of the day, when the sun directly strikes the red rock canyon walls and reflects this red-saturated light down into the bottom of the canyon. Once you train yourself to see past what your visual system tells you it is seeing (brown mud) you can begin to see the intensely red coloration of this light and even begin to notice that there is a blue component where direct light from the open sky reflects off of some surfaces. And then, you may also find yourself intently focusing on making a photograph of a small patch of dry and cracked mud sitting atop red sand.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Napping Elephant Seals

August 23, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A crowd of elephant seals napping on the beach near Point Piedras Blancas

This is (yet another!) photograph of elephant seals lolling about on the beach near Point Piedras Blancas just south of the Big Sur coastline. This location is well-known for providing easy access to viewing of these remarkable animals. They are found in many other locations along the coast now that their numbers have recovered, but in most places access is much more difficult. Here there is an “elephant seal nursery” mere feet for the Pacific Coast Highway, with short observation trails that give good views of the action and which protect both the seals and the human visitors.

I visited a bit earlier in this season when the pups were still rather small. This visit was almost an afterthought — after a morning of photographing landscapes and seascapes along the Big Sur coast I found myself at the southern end of this area with a few hours to kill in midday light, so I decided to drive a bit further and visit the seals. There were not nearly as many there at this later point in the season, but there were still plenty for me to make photographs. Images of the animals lying almost motionless on the sand not only evoke our own pleasant thoughts of doing the same thing (!) but they can also create a false impression that the lives of these creatures are lives of ease. In fact, the reality seems quite a bit different. In contrast to what seems like a life as a big chunk of sleeping blubber, these animals become quite sleek and graceful once in the water — where I understand that they have to be on the lookout in order to avoid become a snack for a great white shark!

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sand

Red Rock and Roots

Dry Bush and Shadow

Dry Mud and Sand

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