Tag Archives: travel

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Winter Oaks, Morning Mist

February 25, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning mist swirls around Glacier Point beyond the silhouetted branches of winter oak trees, Yosemite Valley.

This morning proved – yet again – that there is “always something to see” if I’m just out there looking. We had stayed overnight in The Valley the night before, following the opening reception for Yosemite Renaissance 28, the annual juried exhibit of work created by artists inspired by and working in and around Yosemite National Park. (It is a wonderful show and you should stop by the Museum Gallery in the Valley if you are in the Valley during the next few months.) After heading out for a late dinner with a group of other participants after the reception, we got to bed quite late and the idea of waking up well before dawn to photograph was not sounding as appealing as it sometimes can. It didn’t help that the weather forecast was for clouds and a chance of rain or snow.

I woke up at 5:30 and reset my alarm for the relatively late hour of 6:30, thinking that whatever photography there might be would be almost outside my door and realizing that sunrise would not be until after 7:00 a.m. I got up, quickly dressed and grabbed camera gear, headed out the door and started walking. In the pre-dawn light I could see that the clear areas of the sky were quickly diminishing and that clouds were ringing the Valley. I ended up in nearly deserted Cooks Meadow, where I made a few photographs of trees and cliffs and so forth. Then it started to rain lightly. I kept shooting a bit longer, but soon realized that I couldn’t really stay out there since I had not thought to bring anything waterproof for me or my gear. I retreated to a nearby shuttle bus stop and found shelter under its roof. Now of all the places to look for aesthetic inspiration in the Sierra, a Yosemite Valley shuttle stop might be very close to the least likely. However, finding myself in one and with nothing else to do, I began to look around to see what I could see from this small sheltered area. First I noticed a large granite face to my east that was becoming reflective in the light rain, and I shot a few photographs in that direction. Then I looked up through the branches of dormant oak trees toward Glacier Point and saw clouds swirling about it and nearby pinnacles and trees, occasionally broken enough to allow some of the sunrise light to create a glow behind the mist. And there you have it – the first photograph I have made from under the roof of a shuttle stop… ;-)

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

Maple Leaves, Cliff

February 23, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Yellow autumn maple leaves against a sandstone cliff face, Zion National Park.

When I think of Zion National Park, a few sorts of scenes come immediately to mind – red cliffs, curving and rounded patterns of colored sandstone… and trees against the sandstone walls. During my 2012 visits to the park I had ample opportunities to photograph the latter subject – new spring cottonwood growth against the rock in early April, maples in the park’s high country in early October, and then more maples in both the high and low areas near the end of the period.

I photographed these brilliant yellow leaves in the high country along the Mount Carmel highway, on one of my walks away from the road down into the bottom of the canyon where the rocks close in and these trees grow, tucked along the edge of waterways or into small areas up against the rocks. The colors of the trees in these often-quiet places range across almost the entire spectrum of fall color – from unchanged green leaves and some lime green leaves just beginning the transition, through red and orange to this this golden-yellow, and finally to the dull browns of fallen leaves.

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

Salt Flat Patterns

February 22, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Detail of a section of Death Valley salt flats as seen from Dantes View

Death Valley is often not quite what it seems to be. Repeat visits and views from different perspectives – far away, very close up, from above – begin to reveal things that you might not see at first. From next to and on the salt flats in the lowest section of the Valley, you see a very desolate terrain – one of the most non-human terrains I know. Here, well below sea level, there are places that seem completely inhospitable and alien, landscapes of caked salt, worked and sharp-edged salt and dried mud, seeps of shallow water, occasional odd plants, and landscape that often seems to go on almost endlessly the same way. But just as looking more closely reveals surprises (such as living creatures in those millimeters-deep pools of salty water), the view from overhead shows patterns that cannot be readily seen up close.

This photograph was made from the summit of Dantes View. This high point along the eastern side of the valley is close to a mile above the Valley floor. The view can often be panoramic, stretching for tremendous distances in almost all directions, blocked only by the higher peaks of the Panamint Range to the west and a few other high points nearby. Although Dantes View is one of the best known “iconic” locations in the park, I have a complicated relationship with the place. First of all, I seem to attract awful weather when I go there, perhaps because I tend to do so in the season that is winter elsewhere in the state. Not too long ago I attempted to drive to the summit on a winter day and was turned back by a snow storm perhaps a half mile from the end of the road. In addition, it has been hard for me to warm up to the place as a photographic subject. In some ways, there is almost just too much in the view for me to see how to isolate a photograph out of that detailed immensity. I dealt with that here by using a very long lens and restricting my view to a small section of the valley floor, without much context of surrounding terrain, which I think produces a photograph that allows the features in this frame to be seen as abstractions.

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

Sandstone Tower, Fruita District

February 21, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A sandstone tower stands above the Fruita District orchards in early evening light, Capitol Reef National Park

These sandstone plateaus and mesas seem characteristic of this front-country area of Capitol Reef National Park, and they are perhaps the most striking visual icon of your approach to the park from the town of Torrey, Utah, to the west. The Fruita District is the most accessible area of the park, being right alongside the main east-west highway that passes through the park. It features some picturesque sites and sights that are enough to make almost anyone pull over and look, including the old orchards that apparently gave the area its name and the accessible petroglyphs on low cliffs that run along the road. (Although this portion of the park is quite accessible once you are out here and driving across Utah, most of the park is anything but easily accessible, and getting to other places within its boundaries can involve some very long drives on some fairly bad roads, plus some hiking. I’m fine with that! ;-)

I made this photograph late in the day, after we had done a bit of exploring along the main tourist route into the park, the largely paved road towards Capitol Gorge and other nearby points. Late in the day I happened to spot this little conjunction of creek and fall-color tree and green grass and red rock cliffs as we were about to leave the park.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: travel

Winter Oaks, Morning Mist

Maple Leaves, Cliff

Salt Flat Patterns

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