Tag Archives: southern

Photographs: Textures, Photographs: Urban/Street

Fabric

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Fabric
Colorful pieces of fabric photographed in a Southern California market.

Fabric. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Colorful pieces of fabric photographed in a Southern California market.

This photograph comes from a visit to a collection of craft stores at a San Diego location a few years ago. We were there on a family visit, but I rarely go anywhere without carrying a camera, and it was impossible to resist stopping to photograph these beautiful and wildly colorful bits of fabric at one of the shops.

Here in California these images and these colors are a part of our culture. That, of course, should be no surprise at all in a state where it is hard to travel more than a few miles without passing through a town or a county with a Spanish-language name: San Francisco, Merced, Los Angeles, and… San Diego.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Arching Cottonwood, Canyon Stream

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Arching Cottonwood, Canyon Stream
An autumn cottonwood tree arches across a stream deep in a Utah slot canyon.

Arching Cottonwood, Canyon Stream. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An autumn cottonwood tree arches across a stream deep in a Utah slot canyon.

There are still a few more photographs in this series from a small canyon in a somewhat obscure part of this Southern Utah landscape. The canyon is a bit of a special place to me, even though visitors might not regard it as being as spectacularly iconic as some better known places. It was the very first such canyon that I ever entered, and for that reason it will always retain a bit of additional magic.

The starting point for entrance is, as is often the case with these canyons, not particularly striking at all. There is a small gravel parking lot, perhaps unmarked, surrounded by mostly dry foliage and some nearby cottonwood trees. You drop down a steep bank to reach a small, slow-flowing stream, then follow it as it meanders through flats. Eventually the walls rise beside you, and before long you are cut off from the larger world.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Desert Pinnacles

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Desert PInnacles
Tufa pinnacles in the middle of a vast desert valley.

Desert Pinnacles. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tufa pinnacles in the middle of a vast desert valley.

These lonely tufa tower pinnacles stand alone in the middle of a very large Southern California desert valley. If you passed on the nearby highway and did not know they were there you could easily overlook them — though when you do spot them they make a striking sight.

Beyond their austere and striking visual appeal, they also provide evidence of the remarkable ways that the landscape formed. Despite being in a location which today seems about as arid and unforgiving as you can imagine, they were formed by water. This entire basin was filled with a lake a long time ago, and the towers grew around submerged springs. When the lake disappeared the towers remained.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Intertwined Trunks

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Intertwined Trunks
Tightly laced tree trunks, Southern Sierra Nevada

Intertwined Trunks. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tightly laced tree trunks, Southern Sierra Nevada.

This is an older photograph that has languished in my raw file archives for nearly a decade. Back in 2010 I was on a long Southern Sierra backcountry trip with a group of friends — roughly speaking we made a giant semi-circle around Mount Whitney, starting southeast of that peak and coming out over a week later at a point considerably north. A milestone on this trip was realizing — finally! — that re-climbing that iconic peak is less profitable than spending time in many other equally beautiful places in the Sierra. At several points on this trip we found ourselves in lonely, less-visited spots, and I treasure the trip for that reason. These trees were at one of our campsites, in a location essentially right at timberline.

Everyone’s work habits are unique, but for me it is important to periodically go back and look through older photographs that didn’t “go anywhere” at the time. I inevitably find images that are worth the second look. I’ve often pondered how and why this happens. Among my theories: perhaps I simply moved on to quickly to other projects at the time, possibly I didn’t really understand how to “see” the image, my interests and perspectives have changed. Regardless, this is one reason that I’m hesitant to delete a lot of raw files — all too often I’ve gone back and found something that I was glad I kept!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.