Tag Archives: usa

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

Disrupted Strata

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Disrupted Strata
The fractured and bent layers of a fractured boulder in a Utah slot canyon.

Disrupted Strata. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The fractured and bent layers of a fractured boulder in a Utah slot canyon.

This jumble of rocks sits in a Southern Utah canyon, piled on debris and the lower face of a cliff that runs along the banks of a small creek. The bottoms of such canyons are, for obvious reasons, places full of all sorts of debris that either falls from the surrounding cliffs or is washed down the canyon in periodic floods. A good part of the challenge of making progress through such terrain involves contending with this detritus.

As is so often the case in these landscapes, the initial appearance of features may mislead the viewer about their history. Rocks, of course, seem quite solid and immutable. But this little vignette of almost nothing but rock actually shows more about how much it changes than about its stability. This rock was formed in layers laid down by water a long, long time ago. Those layers were compressed, folded, upended and broken over time. Here we see a snapshot of that process. Lying atop a smoother section of the cliff, this deteriorating boulder’s layers are made apparent as they break apart and realign.

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 and Amazon.

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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Spring in the Urban Forest

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Spring in the Urban Forest
A tree with new spring growth in downtown San Francisco.

Spring in the Urban Forest. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A tree with new spring growth in downtown San Francisco.

Here is another momentary detour away from the natural world and to the urban landscape, this time in San Francisco. I made the photograph on a spring day when I found branches with new leaves along this highly urban street, a place where it is possible to frame a photograph so that every single element is constructed by humans. But even here, spring cannot be held back.

These metal, concrete, and glass canyons are a landscape just as much as any red rock or granite canyon. It is possible to apply the same ways of seeing (at least to some extent) to both sorts of subjects. One of the features on this scene that always seems remarkable to me is the reflections. The largest area of what you “see” in the photograph does not consist of the actual objects in the frame, but rather of the ephemeral reflections of other objects on their surfaces.

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 and Amazon.

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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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Arching Cottonwood, Canyon Stream

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Arching Cottonwood, Canyon Stream
An autumn cottonwood tree arches across a stream deep in a Utah slot canyon.

Arching Cottonwood, Canyon Stream. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An autumn cottonwood tree arches across a stream deep in a Utah slot canyon.

There are still a few more photographs in this series from a small canyon in a somewhat obscure part of this Southern Utah landscape. The canyon is a bit of a special place to me, even though visitors might not regard it as being as spectacularly iconic as some better known places. It was the very first such canyon that I ever entered, and for that reason it will always retain a bit of additional magic.

The starting point for entrance is, as is often the case with these canyons, not particularly striking at all. There is a small gravel parking lot, perhaps unmarked, surrounded by mostly dry foliage and some nearby cottonwood trees. You drop down a steep bank to reach a small, slow-flowing stream, then follow it as it meanders through flats. Eventually the walls rise beside you, and before long you are cut off from the larger world.

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 and Amazon.

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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Tree and Sandstone Cliff

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Tree and Sandstone Cliff
A solitary tree against red rock sandstone cliff at Capitol Reef National Park.

This is yet another photograph where I’m pretty sure where I made it but willing to admit to a bit of uncertainty. My recollection, reinforced by examining the imagines just before and after it in my chronological record, is that I made it in a canyon at Capitol Reef National Park, and probably in a location that isn’t particularly hard to access. I’m always intrigued by the wild color contrasts in this part of the world, perhaps even more so having the largely gray Sierra Nevada as my home range!

I”ve been to Capitol Reef a few times now, though not yet enough to know the part the way I know places like Yosemite where I’ve probably spent something approaching two years of my life in total. One thing that fascinates me about Capitol Reef — among may fascination-worthy features — is the contrast between the relatively small front country section with its lovely campground and easy road access and the much larger and much more remote sections of the park that are not nearly so easy to get to.

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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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