Tag Archives: southwest

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

Red Rock Vista

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Red Rock Vista
Red Rock Vista

Red Rock Vista. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. October 23, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trees and brush and red rock stretching toward the horizon

This was a day of travel and establishing a new “home base” with a different group of friends. It began at a national park campground, involved a bit of driving on paved and unpaved roads, and ended at a rustic “camp site” close to 50 miles out on a gravel track. We arrived and spent a bit of time settling in, getting our camp for the next few days organized, and later each of us spent a bit of time wandering the nearby hills and “tuning up” our vision for the coming photographic work.

That evening we wanted to photograph something, but at this late hour and following a somewhat busy day our goal had to be a bit modest. So we loaded ourselves into vehicles and drove back up the road a bit to a spot with impressive red rock hills and walked up onto the sandstone slabs. There was much to see and photograph, and the light varied between overcast and that nearly perfect light that shines through thin clouds late in the day. As we climbed higher into these hills I stopped at this spot to take in the long view across curved sandstone terrain toward the farther reaches of the valley, as early evening sun slanted across rocks and vegetation.

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.

Morning Musings

Too Many Utah Photographs? (Morning Musings for 11/12/14)

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Cracked Mud, Canyon Light
Cracked Mud, Canyon Light

Is it possible to come back from a place with too many photographs? If so, I may be testing that boundary over the next month or so.

My recent visit to Utah was very productive, and at the moment I have Utah photographs ready to post “as far as the eye can see.” Actually, to be more specific, through the next month (minus a few other subjects on weekends) already, with another couple of weeks or more of photographs of this subject still open in Photoshop.

This brings up several thoughts:

  • I do not necessarily regard all of the photographs I share on the website and in social media to be “masterpieces” or even my very best work. I do think that at a minimum they are worthy of a look, and I like to post them as part of my own review process. When I (we?) look at my photographs “in secret,” I see them differently than when I share them where others can see them — so this posting is a part of my own review and filtering process. (For those who are interested, they also probably give some insight into how and what I “see.”)
  • With a total of perhaps a month and a half or more of Utah photographs in the pipeline, I have decided to break up that subject a bit by posting completely different material on weekends and by taking one week in December to continue posting the work from my September back-country photography in Yosemite National Park. That’s right… there is still more work from that adventure!
  • If you are the sort who just can’t wait to see what is coming, let me share a secret. Before many of the current social media sites caught on, Flickr was the main place to share photographs online. I’ve been on Flickr for many years, and since I was already there I continued to post work there even after other sites became more popular — and my sharing workflow still begins with uploading to Flickr. So you can see what is coming to this website and to Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, ello, and Pinterest by sneaking a look at my Flickr photostream. Or not. ;-)

As a photographer who has so closely identified his work with California — the Sierra, the coast, the redwoods, the deserts, the Central Valley, and more — I’m still a bit surprised at how much I can “see” in Utah and how much photography I have been able to create there!

(The photograph is a sneak preview of one of those upcoming post— it was made in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument of Utah.)

Morning Musings are somewhat irregular posts in which I write about whatever is on my mind at the moment. Connections to photography may be tenuous at times!

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

Canyon Reflections

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Canyon Reflections
Canyon Reflections

Canyon Reflections. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. October 20, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Reflections of canyon and sky in the muddy bed of a canyon stream

I was almost tempted to title this “More Mud.” But I didn’t, even though canyon mud is a very interesting subject throughout this area of the Southwest. I had been in one south Utah location for a few days and it was time to travel to different area to meet up with a friend. Rather than taking the paved roads I decided to follow about 50 miles of gravel back roads — the mileage was shorter but the time was longer. Better yet, this route took me past several interesting sites that I wanted to explore a bit.

One of these is a little canyon that I first visited a few years ago with friends. In fact, this spot was my very first time in one of these deep and narrow canyons, and I recall that the entire experience was foreign to me on that first visit — from walking up the middle of a shallow running stream, to shooting in midday so as to get the best reflected light, and including the new and unusual (to me) sights and sounds of this part of Utah. So I figured that it might be fun to make a brief stop on this drive and wander back up the canyon for an hour or two. The canyon has many attractions, but one is that its regularly running steam keeps the canyon floor mud damp and reflective. Another is that the high walls in some sections can reflect some lovely bright colors down onto the water and the mud. After hitting my turnaround point, as I retraced my steps back down the canyon I paid special attention to the textures and reflections in the mud, and I was excited to find this spot that combined the red sand, the deep blue reflection of sky, the golden reflection of a bit of the canyon walls, and the warm light reflected down into the canyon.

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

Bare Tree, Redrock Cliff

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Bare Tree, Redrock Cliff
Bare Tree, Redrock Cliff

Bare Tree, Redrock Cliff. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A single bare tree stands against a massive sandstone cliff

This photograph had fallen by the wayside in the wake of a 2012 autumn photography trip to Utah with a group of friend. The three of us photographed mostly in various areas of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and also briefly hit Zion on the way to and from the main destinations. As happens all too frequently, after working my way through almost all the photographs from that trip other tasks intruded and I moved on. A week ago one of my shooting partners emailed me to ask if I had a photograph of him that he could use for a newsletter. I recalled that I had one of him set up next to a bit of sandstone wall along the Escalante River, and while looking for it I ended up going back through a set of RAW files shot that day.

Now, over a year later, my specific memory of this photograph is a bit fuzzy. I recall for sure that we spent the day – a cold and windy one – in a big canyon with steep sandstone walls and a meandering stream lined with cottonwood trees and other autumn vegetation, some of which had lost virtually all of its foliage. This tree was one of those almost bare ones, and growing up against the beautiful bit of sandstone cliff its form echoed that of a nearby crack in the rock.

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.