Tag Archives: strata

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Eroded Strata

March 30, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Eroded formations in desert badlands

Returning from Utah last fall we decided to make a detour up toward Red Rock Canyon State Park. I’ve driven through/past this park many times while traveling to and from Death Valley National Park, and every time I’ve passed through I have promised myself to stop… eventually. Eventually continued for more than ten years, aside from a brief pause at a road side pullout, so it was about time to make a visit. The terrain is striking, not looking anything at all like other areas nearby. The fluted and eroded structures and occasional layers of red rock bring the Utah geology to mind, though in a considerably less intense form.

We only had a short time there since we had started our day back in Zion National Park. Arriving in the late afternoon we took what seems like the main driving loop in the main part of the park, and followed it back up to a campground which was almost completely deserted on this late-season date. We found these formations along the upper edge off the campground. At first the very soft light — from high clouds — and the subtle colors almost made me wonder if photographs would be worthwhile, but eventually I figured out how to “see” this light and the subdued colors.

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

Red Rock, Dusk

March 20, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dusk light on sandstone formations, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

On our first day in this part of southern Utah last October we settled into our primitive camp, hung out for a while, and then headed off to an area of beautifully formed sandstone in the late afternoon, where we planned to do our evening photography. When we arrived the sun was still well above the ridge to our west but its light was intermittently muted by thin clouds that softened the contrasts between light and shadow. For perhaps a couple of hours we worked this landscape of carved red rock, with its gullies, ridges, sand-filled flats, holes and every curving shape and texture you can imagine.

There was much to see, and after I photographed the most obvious subjects I continued to look and began to see less obvious features. As the sun dropped behind the ridge and shadows stretched across this area I first felt a kind of urgency to make photographs while the light was still good. I continued shooting right into the post-sunset dusk hour, when color came to the thin clouds and washed this landscape, already red from rocks and blue from haze, with intense reddish-purple light. I made a series of photographs in this area above a carved sandstone gully, and soon it was too dark to shoot any more. I/we looked up from our cameras, enjoyed the quiet for a few moments, then put on headlamps and found our way across rocks and back to where we started and then drove back to camp.

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

Autumn Cottonwood, Red Rock Strata

November 29, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn cottonwood tree foliage backed by red rock strata

Yes, this is just a very colorful tree! We headed out early on this morning, not quite certain what we would photograph, but thinking that it would involve early morning light and not be too far from the Fruita campground at Capitol Reef National Park. We had some thoughts about perhaps photographing in a canyon, but since that is more of an activity for later, when the sun is higher, we did not start with that.

It was a cloudy morning, though initially — if my memory serves — it was the “interesting” sort of cloudiness that allows some sun to poke through the clouds and produce interesting and variable light. However, before long a large deck of high clouds moved in and killed that light. It was time to reevaluate our plans! Soft light can be fine light for some purposes. It may not always have the drama of early morning, low angle sunlit and broken clouds, but it can produce beautiful colors and bring light into what might otherwise be very dark shadows. We headed west from the Fruita district, eventually stopping for a variety of subjects, but this big, beautiful cottonwood tree standing against the slanting sandstone strata was hard to pass up.

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

A Story in Red Rock

November 28, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Broken rocks spread across a layer of sandstone in evening light

This is another photograph from my first evening on this trip in this particular part of Utah, from a day when I had met up with friends and traveled out to find a campsite where we would stay for the next few days — our base camp for exploring red rock and canyons and for sharing meals and conversation. After setting up camp and settling in, we headed out for our first evening of photography, and would up in a nearby landscape of sculpted sandstone.

We began shooting mostly together, finding and exploring some obvious and quite impressive subjects — each working on his or her own photographs but staying mostly in a group. Eventually we began to split up and wander off to do our own individual exploration. Later in the evening I ended up in an area of massive sandstone benches and ridges and potholes, and as the dusk came on and the light turned red/burgundy I was above a small sandstone canyon descending toward the sagebrush country below. This is a simple scene, but I like to think about a few secrets that it may reveal. It is easy to see such landscapes as being static, but the fact is that they are always changing, though mostly on a time scale that is much longer than that of our lives. But occasionally there are obvious clues, and here the clearest is the scattering of fractured rock that has failed from the seemingly solid face in the upper part of the scene, a hint about how it came to be that the lower flat surface runs into the upper wall.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: strata

Eroded Strata

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Red Rock, Dusk

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Autumn Cottonwood, Red Rock Strata

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A Story in Red Rock

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

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