Tag Archives: travel

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

Dunes and Desert Mountains, Evening

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Dunes and Desert Mountains, Evening
Evening clouds above desert mountians and sand dunes, Death Valley National Park.

Dunes and Desert Mountains, Evening. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Evening clouds above desert mountians and sand dunes, Death Valley National Park.

My recollection of this evening is that I arrived barely in time for late-day photography. I had been photographing elsewhere and calculating my schedule carefully. My plan was to arrive just in time to walk out to an area I had scoped out before, arriving at my destination perhaps a half hour before the sun dropped behind a western mountain range. I would first shoot straight into the setting sun, using its rim light to accentuate the forms of the dunes.

My plan mostly worked, though it took a bit longer to hike to the spot than I expected. By the time I arrived I had less than that anticipated half hour to work in the last direct sunlight, but I set to work and did get some other photographs that I like. Then, as happens in places like this, the mountain shadow moved quickly across my position and the light went from warm-toned and intense to soft and increasingly blue. I turned 180 degrees and photographed this evening cloud above the last direct light on peaks along the east side of Death Valley.

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

Morning, Desert Ridges

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Morning, Desert Ridges
Morning haze obscures the details of receding desert ridges and mountains.

Morning, Desert Ridges. © Copyright 2022.G Dan Mitchell.

Morning haze obscures the details of receding desert ridges and mountains.

Visits to places like this (and most travel, in my experience) have a sort of familiar life cycle. I’m fascinated by how many trips conclude. There’s something different about the final hours (or days on longer trips) when things are winding down and I begin to adapt to this. I was having that experience on this morning, the final one of my January Death Valley visit. As I went out to photograph, I didn’t wander too far from camp, and my mind was on packing up and the long drive I had ahead of me. I photographed one location that I had been meaning to get to and then I took a detour up into the hills before heading back to camp.

Although the day started at a location that I hadn’t really photographed, I ended up in this very familiar area. The location has a very long view of a large portion of the immense landscape of Death Valley. Even on a clear day — and this was a clear day — the haze still affects how we see the furthest distances. I paused here and made a series of photographs that used the haze to mute the details of the landscape. Then I was done. I headed to camp, finally had some breakfast, packed up, and headed home.

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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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Ridges and Light

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Ridges and Light
Morning light on curved ridges, Death Valley National Park.

Ridges and Light. © Copyright 2022.G Dan Mitchell.

Morning light on curved ridges, Death Valley National Park.

There are many ways to tell the story of a landscape. One approach is to go for the whole thing, the epic landscape, the big view, and to put everything in the frame. This can work, and it may produce impressive and powerful images of great scale. And, to be sure, Death Valley National Park’s landscape lends itself to this with its expansive vistas, immense mountains ranges, and other striking features.

Another way to say something about a landscape is to go in the opposite direction and let small “excerpts” from the larger scene present aspects of it. The more I photograph a place the more I trend in this direction. You’ll still find me looking at those big views, but more and more I look for small bits and pieces. The texture of these rounded ridges is found all over Death Valley and is usually eroded into some combination of gullies and small, smooth hills. Here the warm-colored early morning light is sweeping across these hills, contrasting with the cooler tones of the shadows.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Breakfast, Manhattan, December 2021

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Breakfast, Manhattan, December 2021
Breakfast on the window sill, Manhattan, December 2021.

Breakfast, Manhattan, December 2021. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Breakfast on the window sill, Manhattan, December 2021.

On one level this is a photograph of a half-eaten breakfast roll on the paper bag it was packed in, sitting on the window sill of a Manhattan hotel room on a cloudy winter morning. We can look at it as a little still life, I suppose, though perhaps a less appealing one than the traditional images of fruit and such. But there’s a story behind it.

For us a typical Manhattan breakfast might be coffee and pastry picked up somewhere on the street or, if we had the time and inclination, a “real breakfast” with eggs and more in a restaurant somewhere. (We follow a “two-and-a-half-meals-per-day plan when traveling, where the half meal could be morning or midday and is usually espresso plus something small.) But this visit was during the start of the Manhattan holiday omicron surge — what a strange description! — and those crowded little restaurants and shops were not so appealing. Fortunately, the Mille-Feuille Bakery was on the ground level of our hotel, so we’d head down there, pick something up, and return to our room… where the morning ritual was to start the covid rapid test, then sip coffee and eat pastry while the 15 minutes passed.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.