This photograph comes from a visit to Southern Utah with a couple of photographer friends some years ago. We took a week to make a loop through the southern part of the state that took in Cottonwood Canyon, the Escalante area, and a few days in the Capitol Reef neighborhood. That latter location is where I made this photograph of a juniper tree in front of a massive sandstone cliff face.
Continue reading Tree, Sandstone Cliff
Although it has been more than a decade since I made this photograph (yes, another “lost and found” photo), I have distinct memories of the circumstances surrounding it. That fall I spent a few weeks exploring the Southern Utah landscape, from the backcountry of Grand Staircase-Escalante to several national parks. Sometimes I photographed alone, but along the way I met up with various friends, relatives, and photographers.
A photographer friend and I camped for several days at Capitol Reef National Park. We explored areas near the campground. (Yes, we tried the pie…) But one day we took a longer trip into the park’s backcountry. At the end of the day we returned to the campground, and just before we arrived we stopped to photograph these autumn trees against a red rock wall.
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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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I have seen some very thick fog during my time photographing winter birds in California’s Central Valley, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it thicker than it was on this January morning. It was so thick that I pretty much had to give up on photographing birds — although I could hear them, I could not see them in in the pea soup fog!
The photograph gives a pretty good idea of the visibility. The details of the tree, only feet away from my camera position, are already largely muted and reduced to a silhouette. Beyond that the world simply… disappears. For those who may wonder, this is a color photograph! (Also, the word “tule” is pronounced TOO-lee, not like “tool.”)
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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
All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.
The massive layers of red sandstone in the American Southwest are impressive. But seeing that plants manage to live on these formations is equally so. The variety of ways they eke out a living is surprising — at the bottom of huge holes in the rock, in tiny cracks, along ledges. Here a small tree adds a contrasting bit of green to the sandstone cliff.
Of course, this is not something that is unique to The Southwest. As a long time Sierra Nevada visitor I still marvel at mature trees that seem to grow almost straight out of rock, sometimes in very exposed positions high in the mountains. It seems to take little to provide enough sustenance — a crack that collects some other plant debris and a little water will do it. Before long, little plant and animal communities spring up beneath these trees.
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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
All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.