Tag Archives: sunrise

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Cook Bank Ruins, Rhyolite

January 21, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

The ruins of the Cook Bank in the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada, with barren desert hills under a pre-sunrise sky.

This was the closest to the winter solstice that I’ve visited Rhyolite, so I shouldn’t have been surprised by several things. First, the sun came up not only later, but also a bit further south along the horizon – and the light that would usually strike these ruins at sunrise was blocked for a while by a large hill that sits next to the town. Second, it was cold! Third, no one else was there at sunrise! This is a bit unusual since in the Death Valley high season (which arrives a bit later in the year), Rhyolite can be a pretty popular place… for a ghost town… in the middle of the desert… in Nevada. :-)

Because I have photographed here several times before and for the reasons mentioned above, I took a bit of a different approach to photographing the place this time. The winter light, some high clouds, and the different point along the horizon of the sun rise meant that the light was quite different from what I’ve occasionally had to work with in the past. At first I was a bit disappointed to realize that the direct dawn light was not going to strike the old Cook Bank and other nearby buildings. But when some clouds to the east obscured the direct light and high, thin overhead clouds begin to pick up color and fill in the shadows, I saw that other interesting lighting was going to make up for it. At the moment that I made this photograph, those clouds to the east (right) of my position beautifully softened what might otherwise have been some stark and harsh light on the pinnacles beyond the town. They also created an unusual and beautiful quality of light for a few moments – a reddish-pink quality from the light reflected from the clouds but with a few soft quality.

I decided to shoot from a distance with a long lens so as to control the position of the ruins against the background hills, and the longer focal length makes these hills more prominent than they would be if I shot the building with a shorter focal length from a closer position. This also allowed me to more carefully eliminate some distracting elements that invariably appear at old sites like this. (The first times I visited, access to most of the ruins was quite unimpeded. Now fences have been erected around some of them. Part of me regrets the loss of access, but the greater part of me understands that this will allow these buildings to be around longer so that more people will get to see them. I stayed behind the fences.) If you look around on the web a bit, you can find some wonderful old photographs of this town when it was a bustling place with thousands of residents, and when the Cook Bank was a very impressive and modern-for-the-time building.

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

First Light, Southern Death Valley

January 12, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

As seen from Aguereberry Point, first dawn light spills across the lower end of Death Valley.

I have previously photographed from this location high in the Panamint Range and overlooking a vast portion of Death Valley National Park and its surroundings. The view stretches east to 11,000+’ peaks in Nevada and west to the crest of the Sierra Nevada, and great distances north and south to places and features that I cannot identify. My previous visits had all been late in the day, and I had often wondered what the location might be like at the start of the day. So, on this visit to Death Valley, a trip to Aguereberry Point before dawn was on my agenda.

As usual, I awoke well before dawn at my camp site back at Stovepipe Wells. (You can often tell if there are other photographers about – in the dark period an hour or more before sunrise you hear people quietly get up, quickly start their engines, and drive away.) I headed up into the Panamints and turned off at the start of the six-mile gravel road that goes to this point, and arrived just before the first colorful light began to light up the sky – and I was pleased to see that there were some interesting clouds. I have been fascinated by this view over the shoulder of a ridge dropping down toward the Valley above Trail Canyon, so I composed a photograph that juxtaposed this diagonal with the end of the Black Mountains across the valley and the light-filled atmosphere beyond where the very first sun was coming across lower Death Valley.

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

Ridge Above Tucki Wash, Dawn

January 9, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

First dawn light on a stratified ridge above Tucki Wash along the base of the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park.

I spent a good portion of the week following New Year’s Day in Death Valley National Park. My goals were to earlier in the seasons when the days were shorter and more “good light” was available, to perhaps encounter cloudy skies from a passing weather system or two, and to both shoot some new subjects and shoot some familiar ones in somewhat different ways. I think that I succeeded with most of these goals, though those storm front clouds were elusive. (This is a very strange and troubling season for California weather. At a time when the Sierra are usually covered in winter snows… all of the high trans-Sierra passes are still open, and the east side of the range looks pretty much like it might normally look in, say, July.)

On one morning I decided to visit a favorite overlook high in the Panamint Range very early in the morning. I’ve shot here a number of times in the past, but always late in the day during sunset and dusk hours. While getting up an hour and a half before dawn to drive to such a place is always a bit of a challenge, at least the sunrise isn’t quite as early at this time of year. On the other hand, it is colder! (Those unfamiliar with the Death Valley seasons may think of it as an entirely hot and dry place, but it gets quite cold there this time of year.) When I got up the temperature down in the Valley at my camp site at Stovepipe Wells was in the thirties. Surprisingly, the temperature rose into the low fifties as I ascended into the mountains, and when I reached my goal at a bit above 6000′ it was no colder than the Valley at this hour.

I arrived before dawn, but just as the pre-dawn light show was beginning. On this morning I had perhaps the best clouds of the entire trip, and they lit up shortly after I arrived and got my equipment ready. (Photos of that moment will likely come a bit later.) As the sun finally rose above the horizon the interesting light began to work its way down, starting with the higher peaks and then descending past the lower ridges to finally reach the Valley itself. This photograph shows the first light striking an unnamed (as far as I’ve been able to determine) spur ridge the projects eastward into the Valley from the massive bulk of Tucki Mountain. In the far distance are the low mountains and washes along the far side of the Valley, and the are also just beginning to pick up the first light.

Shooting in these rapidly evolving conditions that are not entirely predictable is more of an action sport than a sedate and contemplative experience, at least during the first minutes of light as it works its way across and down the landscape, often surprising me by showing up in places I had not thought to look. At one point I had photographed the cloud-filled sky but lamented a bit that the mountains below that shot were a bit dark and drab. I look away for a moment and when I looked back this intense and saturate light had hit those very mountains… so I turned and quickly began to photograph them.

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

Alcatraz Island, Dawn Sky

December 11, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Dawn light gently lights the morning clouds about San Francisco Bay haze and Alcatraz island.

After photographing the lunar eclipse over the Golden Gate Bridge – along with many hundreds of other photographers – I stuck around and turned my attention to other subjects, too. As sky began to lighten with the approaching dawn, and the eclipsed moon sank into the high clouds and generally murky atmosphere over the Pacific coast, I began to see other photographers look around and notice other elements of this urban landscape. But, surprisingly the larger number simply packed up their gear and left as soon as it became hard to see the moon!

I was quite surprised, to say the least. One one hand, it was something to see that so many photographers and other viewers had gotten up at a very early pre-dawn hour just to assemble and together watch this celestial event. On the other, once along the shore of this beautiful bay at sunrise on a mysteriously hazy morning, I’d expect that they might want to look around and try to sustain the experience. (OK, it was cold. They probably wanted coffee. And breakfast. But, still!) In any case, within a surprisingly short period of time, where people had been lined up almost tripod-to-tripod a few minutes earlier, there were few at all left to see the sunrise color come to the high clouds above the bay, here with the misty shape of Alcatraz along the horizon.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sunrise

First Light, Southern Death Valley

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Ridge Above Tucki Wash, Dawn

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Alcatraz Island, Dawn Sky

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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.