Tag Archives: scenic

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

Highlands, Autumn Light

December 19, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

High country of Zion National Park in evening light

On this visit to Zion National Park we did not stay in the usual place, the park boundary town of Springdale, with its hotels and restaurants. Instead we stayed at a place a bit more off the beaten path, up a quiet road quite a few miles away from this town, where we had a home to stay in for a few days.

In the past I have visited many of the more popular areas of the park, since I’m still new to Utah and its national parks and feeling my way into a better understanding of these places. By the time of this trip some elements of the experience were beginning to feel familiar, and we were beginning to look at places we had not visited before. This is one of those areas, and we headed up into it late in the day, when others mostly seemed to be heading down. We weren’t really quite certain what we would find, but we figured that we would at least get up high. On the return trip we came to an area of open terrain with peaks to one side as the sun was setting, and driving past this spot I was stopped short by the light. We stopped, I got out, and I made this photograph more or less from the roadside.

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

Kolob Terraces Area, Sunset

December 17, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sunset on the valleys, ridges, and cliffs of the Kolob Terraces area of Zion National Park

The photographs in the series from which this image comes were my last of the day. We had explored this high and slightly less crowded area of Zion National Park in the afternoon (after exploring another less busy area in the morning) and started heading back down in the early evening. With red rock, fall colors (there were still a few aspens and other trees with autumn colors), open and well-lit terrain, and lots of beautiful red rock, there was plenty to see as the light color warmed.

We had just made a stop that I suspected would be the last of the day, pausing there to photograph evening light on a meadow. We loaded the equipment back up and started down the road, planning to head out, but we soon came around a bend and saw this wild and beautifully lit scene of valleys and cliffs and peaks laid out in front of us. We stopped right there and, if I recall correctly, I pretty much set up my camera and tripod right in the roadway, working quickly before the light disappeared completely from the lower slopes and the valley.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Forest, Ridge, and Haze

December 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning haze mutes the details of forested coastal ridges along the California coast

Yes, yet another of the December black and white photographs — inspired by all of the black and white “challenge” posting going on right now. This photograph comes from 2010 when I made one of my frequent visits to the Point Lobos area along the California coast south of Monterey, an area that I have visited for decades. The typical focus of those visits is the shoreline itself, which is very spectacular here and which produces a wide range of moods throughout the year.

The photograph was made at Point Lobos, but much of what you see is not actually in this state park. The foreground forest is, but the high coastal hills rising beyond are outside the park. As beautiful as the ocean is, there is a lot to see if you turn your eyes in the opposite direction, too! On this morning there was high, thin cloudiness along with a great deal of backlit atmospheric haze — perhaps my favorite conditions for photographing scenes like this one! The haze glows in the backlight, and it mutes the smaller “busy” features of the landscape, allowing the larger forms to be seen more clearly… and perhaps evoking a sense of mystery.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

The Lake, Central Park

December 10, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Summer boaters on The Lake, Central Park, Manhattan

After watching a friend take on the task of posting a continuous string of black and white photographs during the holiday season this year, I have posted more monochrome photographs than usual, with a number of them coming from a backlog of older work that sits in the raw file archives. This has provided a bit of a necessary nudge to go back and revisit some of those older photographs. I haven’t taken a very systematic approach to this nostalgic review of the older work, instead almost randomly dropping in on the files from different years and subjects. A recent look at some older Sierra Nevada photographs took me back to 2010, and it wasn’t a long trip from there to a collection of photographs from a summer 2010 visit to New York City.

I think that 2010 was the first time I visited New York City in August. New Yorkers are perhaps rolling their eyes, knowing all about August weather there, but I was innocent. Now I know. (And, strange as it seems, I actually chose to go back this past August! I’m starting to get used to it and to perhaps even embrace the heat and humidity.) The Central Park location of this photograph is probably fairly obvious — we wandered through portions of the park and ended up near The Lake, where park visitors rowed slowly and serenely within sight of Manhattan’s urban buildings.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: scenic

Highlands, Autumn Light

Kolob Terraces Area, Sunset

Forest, Ridge, and Haze

The Lake, Central Park

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