Tag Archives: sun

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

White Rim, Evening

April 18, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Evening light on the white rim landscape of the Stillwater Canyon area of the Green River, Canyonlands National Park, Utah.

This was an evening of very special light in the Canyonlands, or so it seemed to me. I love soft, hazy conditions and perhaps prefer them to super clear and sharp conditions in many cases. So I had not been at all disappointed earlier in the day to see that the rugged canyons below the “island in the sky” section of Canyonlands were obscured by dust that had been stirred up by very windy conditions. We visited this spot earlier in the day and I identified it as one of several places I thought I might want to photograph at the end of the day, even though the atmosphere looked almost “murky” during the earlier visit. I knew that the edges of the upper cliffs of canyons, for example along the White Rim, could well be nicely lit in the evening light. So as we wandered around other nearby areas, looking for other shooting prospects, I became more and more certain that this is where I wanted to end up.

When we came back here a bit before actual sunset, it was cold and rather windy. The wind had been an issue though out my photography here and at Arches, and I was getting used to timing my shots for the lulls between gusts. I put on warm clothes and wandered out to the edge of the cliffs, where I found a small number of other photographers as well. Earlier I had not only decided on shooting here, but I had also scoped out a couple of likely compositions. One (which I posted earlier) was a horizontal composition that included the bottom of the canyon that would be out of this picture and to the right – a deep canyon that was carved by the Green River and its tributaries. The other was this vertical composition, that angled across the tops of a row of flat areas along the White Rim where canyons alternated with the flat surfaces above with more distant mesas and more mountains beyond. The atmosphere did something that it can often do when the air is hazy – it gradually changed from having a low contrast and filmy appearance with lots of golden tones and began to become more transparent as the light lowered and came in at a lower and lower angle. Here, very close to when the sun dipped below the horizon, the very low angle light strikes the west-facing cliffs and skims across the tops of the low hills in the foreground and on top of the mesa-like formations beyond.

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Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

Morning Clouds, Angel Island, San Francisco Bay

March 13, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Light shining through layers of morning clouds over San Francisco Bay silhouettes the hills of Angel Island near Richardson Bay.

I can be a bit of a creature of habit when it comes to shooting in certain locations that I’m very familiar with. But the habit isn’t so much shooting the same thing – though that can be part of it – as it is being attentive to how the familiar thing might present itself in ways I have not previously seen. This photograph is a case in point.

I was on my way to a location north of the Golden Gate where I frequently photograph, so I know the route well and have a routine that I frequently follow – it involves where I’m heading, what time I plan to get there, and the route I typically follow. Along the way there are several places where I almost always pause long enough to look around and see if a familiar scene might look different. At a location where my route follows a short ridge line, I often stop and look back across Richardson Bay towards Angel Island and, beyond that, the waterfront of Oakland and then the East Bay hills. On this recent morning, a weak weather front was washing out as it arrived in the Bay Area and, as a result, there were many layers of clouds stacked up to the east. While the sun was able to shine through and light the surface of San Francisco Bay beyond the boats anchored in Richardson Bay, there was haze in the atmosphere that obscured details even on relatively close Angel Island, and in the sky above and beyond there were layers of fog, lower clouds, and the highest clouds of the weather front.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

First Light, Base of Tucki Mountain and the Panamint Range

February 25, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

First morning light on the rugged landscape of the base of Tucki Mountain and the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park, California

This photograph was made from a location a ways up from the bottom of Death Valley, from which I could look directly across at the lower slopes of gigantic Tucki Mountain as the first morning light worked its way down toward the lower ridges and the huge alluvial fan at the base of the mountain. At the moment I made the exposure the light was just beginning to fill this slanting area below the rugged mountains, and the light was softened by morning haze.

Tucki Mountain is a huge peak that almost seems to me to be large enough to count as its own minor mountain range. It rises above Stovepipe Wells, and extends a great distance east, south, and west of there. It is laced with deep canyons and its lower slopes are heavily eroded to reveal tilting and twisting strata. Another large valley lies on beyond the foreground spur ridge in this photograph, and beyond that the Panamint Range rises to its crest at 11,000+’ Telescope Peak.

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

Birds, Brush, and Setting Sun

February 2, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Sun sets over Merced National Wildlife Refuge, silhouetting brush and birds.

I’m not usually one to shoot straight into the rising or setting sun, but here you are… straight into the setting sun! While photographing birds and landscape at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge during the last weekend of January, we ended at a bend in the gravel road that loops around the main area of the refuge. We were trying to get close enough to some very big flocks of birds that were settling in on the nearby fields along the ponds, but they were mostly too far away. From time to time flocks would pass overhead, so we were able to photograph them in small groups, but the shots of the larger group – containing thousands of birds – eluded us on this visit.

But when the birds are more difficult to photograph, I end up looking around more at other things. And even in what might seem like a flat and almost featureless landscape, there are elements that contribute to the sense of quiet and space that comes on in the evening in the parts of the Central Valley… and before you know it, I’m shooting landscapes again! We had seen this little clump of trees or brush earlier and used it as an element in some other photographs. We had also noticed that one solitary bird perched motionless on a single tall branch extending above the surrounding thicker brush. Then it occurred to me that if I moved just a few feet to my left that the sun might pass right behind the bird shortly before it set – and a few frames later this photograph resulted.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sun

White Rim, Evening

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First Light, Base of Tucki Mountain and the Panamint Range

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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.