Tag Archives: sandstone

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

Cottonwood Trees and Redrock Canyon, Autumn

July 14, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Brilliantly colorful autumn cottonwood foliage winds down a Utah red rock canyon

After four days of photography and camping in the far reaches of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, I came out to civilization and spent a night at Boulder Mountain Lodge. (Not my usual thing, but I had an appointment to meet someone there — and it was quite a fine visit!) Arriving a bit early, I decided to head out on a nearby road just to see what I could see.

I knew this road a bit from traveling it in the past — I was looking forward to red rock cliffs and some cottonwood color. But I was not prepared for the intensity of the autumn cottonwoods in this little canyon. The effect was a combination of arriving at the peak moment of color for these trees, and the fact that the light was slightly softened by some high clouds. The result was one of those colorful scenes that you imagine but rarely actually find, with the tree winding down the canyon and around the far bend.

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

Cottonwood Tree, Sandstone Pothole

July 8, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A cottonwood tree with fall foliage stands in the bottom of a sandstone pothole.

Coming upon one of the large and deep sandstone potholes is a strange experience. There is something almost spooky about them. At first there is no obvious explanation for how such a thing could come to be. (It involves water and wind and long periods of time.) There is something strangely attractive about them and you want to get closer and closer to the edge. But this is a very dangerous proposition. The incline of the rock increases quickly and then quickly becomes vertical. It is a long ways down — perhaps as much as twenty feet. And anyone falling into such a pothole would not only be injured by the fall but would find it virtually impossible to get out without help. (There are stories of people finding dead animals that had fallen in and died there.)

There is positive magic about these formations, too, especially when a beautiful cottonwood tree grows within one of them, creating a kind of magical garden cut off from the rest of the world. We came to this area late in the day, climbed up onto VAST sandstone slabs, picked a route across the terrain, and arrived at a place where there were several of the potholes, many of which were home to cottonwood trees full of autumn foliage.

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

Fall Foliage, Sandstone Canyon

July 6, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The colors of fall foliage and red sandstone canyon rock, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

These are the kinds of Utah colors that make some of us return to California and to find that “our Sierra Nevada” looks a bit more gray than we thought! In my experience, the color season in southern Utah begins in late September with the arrival of aspen color. (I have seen it, but so far have arrived just after the peak color.) It continues later in the month as the lower elevation cottonwood trees become intensely colorful. In some places the show is still continuing in early November.

The fall color show on its own would be impressive, but place those colors against the backdrop of Utah’s colorful sandstone landscape and the overall effect is very powerful. We returned from a daytime adventure elsewhere in Capitol Reef National Park and passed through this canyon area just before sunset. The light in the areas shaded by the tall cliffs was already becoming soft and luminous, and in this light the colors can become even more intense. We stopped and more or less wandered for as the sun continued to drop, photographing in the quite evening right up until the light was too far gone.

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

Weathered Cliff, Evening Light

July 2, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early evening light on the face of a rugged and weathered sandstone cliff, Capitol Reef National Park

Recently I have been thinking about where we find subjects for photographs and about the fact that they are everywhere — I could say that you don’t always have to seek out particularly “special” places, or I might instead say that if you look closely enough almost any place can be special in some way. I do understand the interest in creating photographs of recognizable subjects and perhaps even the challenge of trying to make such photographs stand out in some way. But for me it is far more interesting to use the camera as a means of focusing more closely on what I can find wherever I am, and then trying to clear away obstacles to seeing these subjects in my own way.

Late in the day we had stopped along a section of roadway in Capitol Reef National Park. We knew, of course, that red rock sandstone cliffs and autumn trees were there, but most of all we stopped because the light was so fascinating. We simply walked along the road and looked, and almost everywhere we looked we found something that seemed like it might be worthy of a photograph. There was so much to see in this small area that as fast and furiously as we photographed, we felt like the light was passing too quickly. The subject of this photograph is a rough and weathered by of sandstone cliff that I happened to notice as I looked up from another subject I had been photographing.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sandstone

Cottonwood Trees and Redrock Canyon, Autumn

Cottonwood Tree, Sandstone Pothole

Fall Foliage, Sandstone Canyon

Weathered Cliff, Evening Light

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