Tag Archives: utah

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

Streamside Foliage, Autumn Color

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Streamside Foliage, Autumn Color
Streamside Foliage, Autumn Color

Streamside Foliage, Autumn Color. Zion National Park, Utah. October 29, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Colorful autumn foliage along a Utah stream at the base of sandstone cliffs

This photograph includes several things that attract me. For one thing, the subject is visually very complex — and I enjoy the challenge of trying to create a coherent composition from such subjects. For another, it includes several visual elements that I like a lot. One is the juxtaposition of foliage and red rock, which is found so frequently in the Southwest. Another is the state of the fall color transition here — it is at the interesting point where there are still quite a few green leaves, but where the transition is unmistakable. On top of that, the varied foliage includes a wide range of original colors, from bright green (and the autumn hello) of the main trees to the blue-green and dusty colors of the smaller plants at the bottom of the frame.

This little vignette is found along the Virgin River in Zion Canyon, where the river provides water along its course to support a lot of rich vegetation. More specifically, here the river makes a curve at the base of a very tall section of sandstone cliff, a bit of which is seen beyond the trees. The cliff is so high and the canyon so deep that little direct sunlight makes it down to this spot, and instead there tends to be a lot of beautiful soft light.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Potholes, Dusk

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Potholes, Dusk
Potholes, Dusk

Potholes, Dusk. Utah. October 23, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dusk light on the curving pothole forms of Utah sandstone

The grand landscape is a wonderful and impressive thing, but a bit of dusk light on curving rock can evoke the fundamental qualities of a place. This was my final photograph of the day, made just before there was no longer enough light for the kinds of photograph I had in mind, and as it was about to become to dark to find my way out of this landscape. Earlier I had begun by photographing subjects that were perhaps more clearly specific to this location, but as I continued to photograph and as the light changed I made photographs that I think are less about the particular location and more about the feeling of such places.

The light was tricky on this evening. There had been sunlight earlier, and at times it had been the beautiful soft yet direct light of the sun coming through high clouds. But it has also been very muted at times, as the clouds became thicker, producing the a kind of flat and colorless light that is challenging. But earlier clouds can lead to later sky color as the sun drops near the horizon and lights up these same dull clouds from underneath. As I finished with some of the more obvious photographic subjects I began to look at the patterns and colors of the rocks as possible subjects of more abstract images, and it was at about this point that the sky opened up for a few minutes, producing light with colors ranging from yellow to red to burgundy. I made this final photograph of the evening as the tempo of the work slowed in luminous twilight, and this light combined with the natural color of the sandstone to produce intense and saturated colors on the sinuous shapes of the rock. A moment later we all realized that it had become quite dark, that we had not brought headlamps, and that we had to negotiate some tricky terrain in order to get back to where we started!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Canyon Light

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Canyon Light
Canyon Light

Canyon Light. Southern Utah. October 19, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Warm reflected light filters into the depths of a Utah slot canyon

I’m somewhat new to the world of Utah slot canyons, but I’m also increasingly enthusiastic about them and their photographic potential. I have not visited some of the iconic “big name” slots (and I may or may not do so), but I have found similar experiences in other locations. During my recent Utah visit I had thought about exploring a particular area in southwest Utah. I had a few place names in mind, but I really did not know much about them in any detail. (I often prefer to not know too much about these places, preferring instead to discover them on my own.) This canyon has a name that I had heard before, so one morning I decided to head out that direction and see what I could discover.

I drove down a gravel road, parked, loaded up camera equipment and a snack, and headed down a broad wash into the upper part of the valley though would eventually narrow and become a slot canyon. While it is no doubt more efficient to begin closer to such canyons, I enjoy the process of moving from the wider valleys to the narrower canyons, and the walk down the meandering path of the stream above the narrow canyon was enjoyable. Inside the narrow section the walls rose vertically, the canyon floor was often quite wet, and beautiful soft light filtered down from above, reflecting the warm reddish colors of the rocks and highlighting their shapes and patterns.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Tall Cottonwood, Sandstone Canyon

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Tall Cottonwood, Sandstone Canyon
Tall Cottonwood, Sandstone Canyon

Tall Cottonwood, Sandstone Canyon. Zion National Park, Utah. October 29, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An old cottonwood tree towers about streamside trees at the bottom of gigantic sandstone cliffs.

This is a well-known and heavily traveled location in Zion Canyon along the Virgin River in Zion National Park — yet a place that I’m unable to resist visiting when I’m in Zion NP. It probably isn’t necessary for me to name the spot, since most anyone who has been there likely recognizes it.

Here there is a bend in the path of the Virgin River, which flows along the base of a very tall section of the canyon, tight against the outside of the bend where the river continues to work on carving the sandstone deeper. Trees grow along the creek at the base of the red rock wall, and the curve of the canyon creates a feeling that might be described as being almost cathedral-like. The light is often subdued, at least during the seasons when I have visited, since the canyon walls are so high that the sun only rises above them for a short time each day. In the particular spot where I made the photograph, one massive old cottonwood tree towers above the rest.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.