Tag Archives: usa

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

High Desert, Rock and Sage

May 26, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An upturned boulder stands in a wash below high desert mountains, Death Valley National Park

This was not a day like most that you would expect to experience in Death Valley National Park, although in this spring transitional season such days are not completely unexpected. Early in the morning we had been at a very high promontory from which we had expansive views of a huge area of the desert mountain landscape, though an incoming storm muted the colors and blocked the sunrise light. Soon after that it began to snow, and we spent several hours photographing in desert mountain snow. Oddly, a portion of this time was spent photographing copious spring wildflowers!

By early afternoon the main body of the storm was passing and the clouds began to break in some places, and while it continued to rain or snow in other nearby mountains we had sun where we were. We took advantage of this to visit an old historic site high in the mountains, and then we began our drive back to the Valley itself, where I had an evening subject in mind. Along the way we pulled over at a spot where I often like to stop and look at and perhaps photograph certain things. While there I looked back across this valley, with hills briefly green from spring moisture, and noticed the juxtaposition of the shape of this layered rock in the foreground and those soft hills with moving cloud shadows in the distance.

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: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

White Faced Ibises, Clouds and Sky

May 20, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of white-faced ibises is silhouetted against early spring evening sky above the San Joaquin Valley

I have what almost amounts to a tradition of making a weeklong visit to Death Valley near the end of March and beginning of April, that time of year when this desert landscape oscillates between winter and summer conditions and when the flowers bloom.. After a week or so in that austere landscape I am usually quite ready to see green and a greater density of living things. I’m also ready to get home! On a typical final day of the trip I do a bit of photography in the morning and then leave the park well before noon and start the long drive home. During the last few years I have made it my practice to leave early enough that I can just make it to one of my favorite San Joaquin Valley bird locations before the sun sets.

It has been a series of drought years in California and this was the worst one so far. When I drove do Death Valley things were still just as dry as we would expect in such a year. But while I was in the park a series of winter storms swept across the state—finally! I saw some rain and snow in DEVA, but by the time I got to the Central Valley is was clear from the puddles and ponds that a real storm had come through. I drove on up highway 99 and turned west toward my destination and found fields that were actually green. And on arriving at the wildlife refuge I was greeted by the smell of damp air and plants and the sounds of birds. What a contrast to Death Valley! Close to dusk we found a large flock of dark-colored birds in the shallow water nearby, and a closer inspection showed them to be white-faced ibises, settling in where the now departed geese would have distracted us from such quiet birds a few weeks or months earlier. As the evening wore on, large groups flew in, circled, and then descended to join the flock… including this group that passed in front of delicate dusk clouds and blue hour sky.

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

Curves, Desert Canyon

May 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Small dry plants grow in a curving crack in a two-toned desert canyon, Death Valley National Park

Passing through this deep and narrow canyon, I always watch the rock walls for little odds and ends of shape and form and color and occasional surprising bits of vegetation. If you had asked me about this section of canyon after my first passage some years ago, I might well have mentioned how narrow and deep it is and perhaps how dusty. I might have commented on the way the bottom remains in shade even in the midday heat. But repeated visits have shown me that there is much more to see, and the fact that I still see new things on every visit tells me that there is far more yet to be discovered.

On one hand this is a pretty plain photograph of some rocks with cracks running through them. On the other hand, I think there are some stories behind the scent that are interesting to contemplate. At least I think so! If you look closely you will see some very dry plants that have grown in this curving crack. It is hard to imagine a more inhospitable place for a plant to grow—perhaps a dozen feet up the nearly solid rock wall of an arid and hot desert canyon. Yet somehow these plants found a way, as did and do many other plants throughout this desert landscape. Behind the small, delicate, and even intimate element of these plants is the backdrop of a small section of a massive rock wall that towers out of sight above the frame of the photograph. Here is a boundary between two sorts of rock—I’m not enough to a geologist to make technical observations, but I do note that the upper layer is darker and more solid while the lower is lighter and has more cracks in its surface. From the upper left a crack follows the junction of the two rock layers, but for some reason the crack leaves the junction and curves back upwards into the darker rock, and it is in this surprising bit of geological dissonance that the small plants took root.

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

Spring Oaks, Sierra Foothills

May 17, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Spring oak trees and meadows, Sierra Nevada foothills

In this drought year Tioga Pass, the trans-Sierra route through Yosemite National Park, opened earlier than usual. For me, the opening of this pass marks the end of the winter season and the beginning of the summer, with its easier access to the high country. Virtually every year I mark this event by visiting the Yosemite high country on the opening day or as close to it as possible. This year’s early May opening fell on a busy weekend, so I couldn’t be there on the actual opening day, but two days later I was able to squeeze in a one-day up-and-back trip from the San Francisco Bay Area.

I was up way before dawn and on the road before 4:00 AM. During the winter months such a start time would get me into the Sierra for dawn photography, but with the longer days at this time of year the sun rose when I was still in the foothills. While many might regard the foothill terrain as something to pass through on the way to the more interesting goal, I have come to love the soft, curving foothills, with their covering of grasses (green at this time of year, but brown to golden most of the time) and oak trees, either standing individually or as part of large oak forests. When I came to this spot, where I have stopped to photograph before, I found the meadows in that transitional state between the remaining greens of this year’s (meager) spring moisture and browns of California’s summer.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: usa

High Desert, Rock and Sage

White Faced Ibises, Clouds and Sky

Curves, Desert Canyon

Spring Oaks, Sierra Foothills

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