Tag Archives: southwest

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

Canyon Reflections

November 10, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Reflective mud and shallow water in a Utah clot canyon — “Canyon Reflections” — Reflections of canyon and sky in the muddy bed of a canyon stream

I was 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 routes 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. 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 for the best reflected light, and 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 high red rock walls reflect 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 reddish reflection of canyon walls, and the warm light reflected down into the canyon.

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

Bare Tree, Redrock Cliff

December 26, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

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.

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: Utah

Sand and Cracked Mud

December 18, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cracked dry mud curling atop a bed of red sand, illuminated by reflected canyon light, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Dried and cracked mud is one of those strange subjects that seems to be almost irresistible for landscape photographers. Often the concept seems more interesting that the photograph turns out to be, but that rarely stops me from giving it a try. The specific location is entirely unimportant, but I photographed this somewhere in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah while exploring a canyon.

Pardon me while I become enthusiastic about… mud. ;-) These patterns are fairly common, forming where silt-laden water flowed during a rainstorm. Because here the sand is from Utah’s common red sandstone, everything in this images has some red quality to it. The silt itself is tinged pink, and the sand below, some of which ended up on top of the dry mud, is very red. In addition, because this specimen was deep down in a canyon, that beautiful southwest light that reflects off the upper canyon walls casts a lot of very warm colored light onto this little intimate landscape. In fact, without that wonderful light this scene would have little too offer and the coloration would probably be too subtle to work well.

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

Maple Leaves and Sandstone

July 13, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Fallen autumn maple leaves lie on pink sandstone slabs in the high country of Zion National Park

Wind is not usually the photographer’s friend, at least when the photographer is shooting natural subjects that include foliage. Later on this trip we were stymied by strong winds when shooting in the Escalante River Canyon, as the trees and leaves were being whipped around in the gale. But the same winds that create these problems – and I was experiencing some of them with tree photographs on this day, too – also bring down the autumn leaves and in the right conditions can create a thick carpet of the wild fall colors.

This photograph, like quite a few I have shared recently, was made in the bottom of a wash where leaves tend to collect, but by means of water flow and, as here, due to the wind. These maple leaves ranged in color from yellow-gold through orange to almost red, and here they littered the rocks in the bottom of the channel. Like spring flowers, these colors are a fleeting thing, and the leaves on the ground quickly blow away or turn brittle and brown.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: southwest

Canyon Reflections

Bare Tree, Redrock Cliff

Sand and Cracked Mud

Maple Leaves and Sandstone

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