Tag Archives: sand

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

Dune Forms, Evening

January 20, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Shadows from evening light slanting across curved dune forms, Death Valley National Park

Having photographed here many times, I know these and other dunes of Death Valley fairly well – well enough at this point to have some ideas about where and when to photograph them and to be less interested in the more familiar views. I had spent the majority of the day, starting well before sunrise, exploring and photographing an entirely different area of the park, but as I did so I had formed a general plan to head to the dunes at the end of the day and photograph them in evening light. I had a bit of time after finishing with the first subject, so I headed back to camp to hang out a bit.

I may have hung out just a bit too long! My plans for the dunes were not exactly fixed, though I knew that I wanted to investigate a less visited area of lower dunes away from the main area and that I wanted to be out there shortly before sunset – to shoot the sunset light and then to continue shooting right on past sunset and into the beautiful and subtle dusk light. By the time I got to the dunes, I figured out that the winter sun sets a bit earlier than I had realized, and I had to hurry out to my shooting area. Although I did not have a specific idea of what I would shoot, I had some general ideas involving slanting light, shadows, curving shapes, texture of sand, and possibly some vegetation. But once on the scene I had to work extremely quickly, as the long shadows of the low angle sun moved quickly across the sand, and a new composite of light and shadow would appear only to move and then disappear in a matter of seconds or perhaps a minute or two. Within moments of making this photograph, the last warm sun on the dunes was gone, and I was left with the cold post-sunset light.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Beach and Rocks, Pacific Ocean

January 4, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The incoming swell stretches toward that distant horizon beyond a few rocks on an Oregon beach

As we drove south along the Oregon coast in August we passed through Port Oxford. Just below this town the highway briefly curved landward before heading south again, traveling along the edge of a long and wide beach featuring impressive sea stacks and long strings of waves coming in off of the Pacific. I found a spot with a few dark, back-lit rocks to break up the uniformity of the horizontal lines of beach, surf, horizon, and sky, and shot straight toward the sun and its brilliant reflections on the surface of the ocean.

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Utah

Sand and Cracked Mud

December 18, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cracked dry mud curling atop a bed of red sand, illuminated by reflected canyon light, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Dried and cracked mud is one of those strange subjects that seems to be almost irresistible for landscape photographers. Often the concept seems more interesting that the photograph turns out to be, but that rarely stops me from giving it a try. The specific location is entirely unimportant, but I photographed this somewhere in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah while exploring a canyon.

Pardon me while I become enthusiastic about… mud. ;-) These patterns are fairly common, forming where silt-laden water flowed during a rainstorm. Because here the sand is from Utah’s common red sandstone, everything in this images has some red quality to it. The silt itself is tinged pink, and the sand below, some of which ended up on top of the dry mud, is very red. In addition, because this specimen was deep down in a canyon, that beautiful southwest light that reflects off the upper canyon walls casts a lot of very warm colored light onto this little intimate landscape. In fact, without that wonderful light this scene would have little too offer and the coloration would probably be too subtle to work well.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Shoreline Sea Stacks

December 9, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Giant shoreline sea stacks along the Oregon Pacific Ocean coastline.

As we traveled south along the Oregon coastline on the Oregon Coast Highway (US 101) we passed through various towns ranging from quite small to middle-sized. Eventually we came to Port Orford, which did not seem to us to be all the exceptional of a place – though apologies to Port Orfordians, who probably know the beauties of the place far better than some Californians quickly passing through! However, there was one interesting feature that immediately caught our attention. As the highway pass through the town it curves to the left to follow the coast. But at the point where the curve went left, a short section of road continued straight ahead to the top of a hill that appeared to overlook the coast, and a giant sign hand-painted on the roadway almost demanded that we leave 101 and see what was there.

Just over the top of this short side road was an open view of the coast to the south, curving inland right below the town to form a shallow bay. Slightly beyond this we could see a set of large sea stacks along the beach… but no picture in this particular light from our position. We continued on along the highway, curving through town and then back towards the south, and soon came to the spot where the sea stacks stood. Despite some tricky light, including wildfire haze and afternoon intense light, we paused to make a few photographs. First, a large group of pelicans surprised us by slowly flying by into the strong headwind and then landing almost directly in front of us at the waterline. Then I put a longer lens on the camera and went looking for an angle that would let me combine near and far towers with a bit of surf along the wild beach.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sand

Dune Forms, Evening

Beach and Rocks, Pacific Ocean

Sand and Cracked Mud

Shoreline Sea Stacks

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