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Escalante River, Cottonwood Trees, Autumn

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Escalante River, Cottonwood Trees, Autumn - Large cottonwood trees with autumn leaves along the Escalante River, Utah
Large cottonwood trees with autumn leaves along the Escalante River, Utah

Escalante River, Cottonwood Trees, Autumn. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. October 24, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Large cottonwood trees with autumn leaves along the Escalante River, Utah

In many places like this one along the Escalante, the terrain seems to be largely a continuous repetition of one horseshoe bend after another, and each bend encourages me to want to see what will be ahead. When the river bends one way, the bottom of the canyon may be in sunlight; when it bends the other – and perhaps narrows around the apex of the bend – everything may be in deep shadow from the tall cliffs above the narrow canyon. In these bends it is often necessary to cross back and forth across the stream as the canyon narrows. (That ritual was a new one to me as a long-time Sierra Nevada hiker and backpacker. There a stream crossing or two in a day would typically be about it, and we tend to make a big deal out of them. Here you might cross a stream more than a dozen times in less than a mile!)

The location of this photograph was at one of those crossing points. The trail approached my camera position from up the canyon and around the bend along the right (from this point of view) side of the stream, crossed the river down among the trees, and then headed across a low hill to the left that skirted between the river and the base of the cliffs. When I arrived at this point and walked underneath this wildly colorful group of cottonwoods, I thought I’d like to find a way to photograph them, the river, and the dark upper canyon. So, before wading through the water I went ahead a bit and climbed up on a sort of ledge to this overlook from which I had a good view up the canyon. Because it was a partly cloudy day, the light here was in a constant state of change. When the clouds moved overhead, the canyon and the trees become quite dark. But a moment later the cloud would pass on and the sun lit the golden trees so brightly that it was almost impossible to photograph them and keep any light in the background canyon. So I watched and waited and made this exposure when the clouds partially obscured the direct sun, but still let in enough light to brighten the trees and cast soft shadows on the bank of the stream.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Cottonwood Trees and Cloud-Filled Sky

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Cottonwood Trees and Cloud-Filled Sky - Massive old cottonwood trees silhouetted against the cloud-filled autumn sky, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
Massive old cottonwood trees silhouetted against the cloud-filled autumn sky, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Cottonwood Trees and Cloud-Filled Sky. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. October 24, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Massive old cottonwood trees silhouetted against the cloud-filled autumn sky, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

This photograph was a sort of passing whimsy, in a sense. In this particular canyon that we visited in late October, our attention as mostly focused on avoiding inclusion of the sky in the frame. For the most part, the tall cliff walls were almost the default background for many photographs, so I paid little attention to the sky, for the most part, except to contrive ways to keep its distracting solid blue out of the frame, where it would distract from the colors and shapes and textures of rock and trees and water.

But when I came straight up to this tree just before we entered a narrow section of the canyon, it is was impossible ignore. It is actually a single tree that splits into two twin trunks near its base, with each trunk then sprouting a group of curving, twisting and interlocking branches high above the ground. With this subject, out in the open as it was, photographing it against the background of rock would not have worked, and it was so tall that I was essentially forced to shoot it with the camera pointing up. Fortunately, there were interesting clouds in the sky, and even more fortuitously the lines in the clouds roughly lined up with the left half of the v-shape of the two converging ridges down that canyon. Even better, this shallow “v” of the canyon rims and low peaks beyond echoed and cradled the somewhat similar shape found in the upper branches of the tree.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Aretes, Hoodoos, and Trees

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Aretes, Hoodoos, and Trees - Sunset light on sparse trees, hoodoos, and descending aretes at Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah
Sunset light on sparse trees, hoodoos, and descending aretes at Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah

Aretes, Hoodoos, and Trees. Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah. October 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sunset light on sparse trees, hoodoos, and descending aretes at Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah

Cedar Breaks National Monument is almost (but not quite!) a sort of “one trick pony” of a park, though it is quite a spectacular pony! The main draw is the steep and very colorful Bryce-like canyon that drops precipitously from a high ridge along which the park road runs. Below this ridge, beautiful pink layers are exposed, and they have been heavily weathered and eroded into ridges, canyons, steep cliffs, and hoodoo, dotted here and there with a few sparse trees. The canyon faces roughly west, to the late afternoon and evening light on these red rock formations can be quite stunning. (Meanwhile, above the drop-off, the land is entirely different, consisting of gently rolling highland forest mixed with meadows.)

On our first day in the area we got settled in to lodging at nearby Brian Head ski area – where rooms were available at really low rates since this was probably about as “off-season” as you can be! We had some time in the evening so we headed up the road out of Brian Head and were quickly inside the monument. There are quite a few viewpoints along this road, so we picked one. This photograph was in light softened by low clouds on the horizon that still allowed a bit of fading light to illuminate the canyon features from the right.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Juniper Tree and Sandstone Cliffs, Evening

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Juniper Tree and Sandstone Cliffs, Evening - Soft evening light on a single juniper tree among boulders at the base of tall sandstone cliffs, Capitol Reef National Park
Soft evening light on a single juniper tree among boulders at the base of tall sandstone cliffs, Capitol Reef National Park

Juniper Tree and Sandstone Cliffs, Evening. Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. October 26, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Soft evening light on a single juniper tree among boulders at the base of tall sandstone cliffs, Capitol Reef National Park

This photograph was a serendipitous one that resulted from going to a somewhat unlikely place, and going there without a whole lot of enthusiasm, having only modest success at that place, and then while leaving happening to look up at the right moment and spot some very interesting and somewhat unusual post-sunset light. The plot began with an evening last-minute decision to go shoot “somewhere” in Capitol Reef, but without a specific objective in mind. We perhaps had some thoughts about shooting along the descent from Torrey, Utah toward the park boundary, but this is tricky late in the day due to the way the terrain slants up to the west, causing the sun to drop below the elevated horizon rather early and stealing the light from the foreground terrain.

When we passed the park boundary we still didn’t have a clear idea of what the evening’s “target” might be, so we drove slowly into the park, looking at many things but not seeing quite the photographic opportunities that might have caused us to stop. We finally decided to investigate a large canyon and drove to its entrance, parked, and walked in a ways. Because of the orientation of this canyon, the light here also left us rather soon. We made some photographs – a few of which might even turn out to be interesting – and then headed back out of the canyon. The way passed along the base of a very tall sandstone cliff formed from one of the thicker layers of sedimentary rock. Typically the rock would appear darker and redder, but the soft post-sunset light changed the tones to an almost pastel effect – and we both quickly decided to stop and do some shooting. This lone juniper trees was growing improbably in the middle of a pile of very large boulders that had fallen from the cliffs, and those cliffs were catching the late and soft light from the west.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.