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

The Organ and The Tower of Babel

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The Organ and the Tower of Babel - The Organ and Courthouse Towers in early morning light, Arches National Park, Utah.
The Organ and The Tower of Babel in early morning light, Arches National Park, Utah.

The Organ and the Tower of Babel. Arches National Park, Utah. April 6, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The Organ and The Tower of Babel in early morning light, Arches National Park, Utah.

We had arrived in Moab, Utah the previous afternoon, and a quick reconnaissance into the Arches National Park in the early evening had impressed me quite a bit, to say the least! This was my first visit to Arches, and I had only a very general idea of what I might see, so coming upon the fantastic sandstone formations – towers, walls, fins, arches, and more – for the first time was a powerful experience. That evening I had a short time to photograph in conditions that were mixed – very nice light but tremendously strong winds that challenged my ability to use a long lens to pick out small sections of the landscape… and my ability to stay warm! In any case, the brief initial visit was enough to give me some ideas of what I might want to photograph early the next morning.

I was up early and into the park before sunrise the next day. Once again, it was cold – colder, actually – and very windy. I’m often fond of photographing big landscapes with long lenses that let me isolate elements from the larger scene and compress the distances, and I wanted to use that approach with some of the formations close to the “Park Avenue” and Courthouse Towers area of the park. With this in mind I stopped a an exposed spot that gave me a view of a number of these features, put on the long lens, set up the tripod… and then struggled with the tremendously windy conditions as the very beautiful light appeared. It was do-able, but not easy. This photograph includes the very early morning light on the faces of The Organ and the Tower of Babel, two huge sandstone fin-like sandstone towers, with high desert, a thin row of cottonwood trees, and more gigantic sandstone cliffs beyond.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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.

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

The Watchman and the Virgin River, Morning

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The Watchman and the Virgin River, Morning - The virgin River curves towards the Watchman in early morning light, Zion National Park, Utah.
The virgin River curves towards the Watchman in early morning light, Zion National Park, Utah.

The Watchman and the Virgin River, Morning. Zion National Park, Utah. April 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The virgin River curves towards the Watchman in early morning light, Zion National Park, Utah.

The peak in the upper portion of this photograph, The Watchman, with the curve of the Virgin River in the foreground is, as I understand it, one of the iconic photographic subjects of Zion National Park – perhaps being roughly equivalent to a photograph of Yosemite’s Half Dome from the Sentinel Bridge in The Valley. The funny thing, though, is that while I had seen this view of this subject many times in the photographs of others, I actually had no idea where it was or that I would see it when I visited Zion National Park earlier this month. I had somewhat intentionally avoided doing any real research about the places I would photograph, preferring instead to just confront them for what they are, unaffected as much as possible by previous notions about what I “should” photograph.

So, as we rode the shuttle bus into the park from the town of Springdale in the afternoon and crossed a bridge over the Virgin River before heading up into the canyon, I looked to my right and thought, “Oh, it is that view!” I have heard the stories and have seen the pictures of hordes of photographers lined up on this bridge, specifically to shoot this scene with fall colors and at sunset. (You can see a couple of examples by photographer and friend Gary Crabbe here.) I generally don’t seek out the icons, though I most certainly will photograph them if a) I haven’t photographed them before and/or b) there is something unusual or different about the conditions when I’m there. Although I did not stop and get off the bus to photograph the scene on that first evening, in the back of my mind I considered stopping if it looked interesting the next morning. And, in fact, as we took the shuttle back into the park very early the next morning – starting before sunrise, actually – it seemed like it might be worth hopping off after the bridge and taking a look. I was more encourage when we got there, both by the interesting soft dawn light and the lack of any other photographers on the bridge. So, there you go – I now have a photograph of the Watchman and the Virgin River, too! :-)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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.

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

Turks Head, Green River

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Turks Head, Green River - The green river curves around Turks Head and through deep canyons in hazy evening light, Canyonlands National Park, Utah
The green river curves around Turks Head and through deep canyons in hazy evening light, Canyonlands National Park, Utah

Turks Head, Green River. Canyonlands National Park, Utah. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The green river curves around Turks Head and through deep canyons in hazy evening light, Canyonlands National Park, Utah.

I made several photographs Canyonlands National Park’s Green River Overlook on this beautiful early April evening. The upper portion of this area of the park is a high, flat area at about 6000′ of elevation that tends to drop off steeply, especially on the east, south, and west sides which lead to the canyons of the Colorado and Green Rivers just above their confluence. Below this upper plateau there is a second plateau at the level of the White Rim about 1000′ lower, with yet another drop-off into the bottoms of the river canyons and their tributaries.

This photograph is looking roughly southwest into the canyon of the Green River, which is barely visible between the foreground White Rim area and the solitary butte of “Turks Head” just beyond. (At least I hope it is Turks Head! That looks to be the only feature in this area that would fit that description, but I’m now to this geography.) At this early evening time the light was slanting nearly horizontally across the scene from the right and hitting a few of the west-facing slopes and glancing along the top of the White Rim. Haze filled the air, softening the light, muting the colors of the scene, and accentuating the grand scale of this landscape.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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

Detail, Face of The Watchman, Sunset

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Detail, Face of The Watchman, Sunset
“Detail, Face of The Watchman, Sunset ” — The last sunset light on a portion of the face of The Watchman, Zion National Park, Utah.

As this evening approached, I had a plan to be somewhere close to the Zion National Park visitor center above Springdale, where I had seen the nearly full moon rising behind the ridge near The Watchman before sunset the night before. With that timing of the moon in mind, I estimated that on this night, the moon might rise in roughly the same spot but just a bit later. In many ways, the prime time for doing photographs of the full moon is during the golden hour, when there is sufficient ambient light to permit the correct exposure for the moon. But there is no moon in this photograph – so you might wonder what the point is!

I did show up here to photograph the moon, and I did get some photographs of the moon rising over the ridge. But after making a few moon photographs, I began to scan my surroundings a bit more closely, and I saw that the line between the sunset glow and the deeper post-sunset shadows was slowly working its way up the face of the Watchman. So as light/shadow demarcation slowly moved up the face of the cliff below the summit of the Walkman Watchman (!), I turned my camera that direction and made a few exposures of the rugged rocky face as it was lit by the last light of the setting sun.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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