Tag Archives: wall

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Urban/Street, Photographs: Utah

Room for the Big Deep Bend

February 14, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

At about the time I made this photograph, we were staying in Torrey, Utah for a few days. Instead of doing the obvious thing and heading east to visit Capitol Reef National Park again, we headed west towards points unknown but including the Fish Lake area. We passed through small towns whose lives seemed more divorced from the tourist trade than others we had been through along route 12, and eventually turned off the main highway to head up to Fish Lake. It turned out that, at least partially as a result of my decision to not do too much research ahead of time, we had missed the main fall color season there and that, in fact, the whole place was pretty much shutting down for the season. We poked around a bit here before reversing direction and heading back to highway 24.

Rather than end our exploration quite so soon, we continued on along highway 24, soon turned off into the Valley where Koosharem is located. I cannot recall now what drove the decision to go there – perhaps the unusual name of the place or maybe the possibility of getting to mountains on the far side of the valley – but there we went. We initially pretty much drove right through Koosharem and on out into the country on the other side of town, but we soon stopped and decided that this was not the direction we really wanted to go. We turned around and headed back towards Koosharem. This time a few things caught our attention, including the plain architecture of certain buildings in the town and the surprising – to us, anyway – appearance of this antiquated looking, though clearly kept up, sign on the side of this building next to a leave littered parking area that also held an ATV and some sort of small trailer. I wondered about this sign and the advertising copy it contained, and I later found out that Scowercroft and Sons was a fairly large manufacturer of clothing centered in Ogden.

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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.

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

Single-Leaf Ash, Green and Yellow Leaves

January 20, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A single-leaf ash in a narrow sandstone-walled canyon begins its autumn transition from green to yellow, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Now, coming back to this photograph quite a while after I made it, I distinctly remember that the gradient from yellow to green of these leaves caught my attention when I saw this small plant growing out of a crack in the water carved sandstone of this canyon wall. I’m often attracted by dark trunks and branches like those on this specimen, especially when they are seen against a background such as this pink sandstone with the patches of darker, lichen-covered rock.

The photograph was made in the same canyon in this national monument where I made a number of other photographs on this same very productive day – productive despite the difficult weather conditions, which were cold, windy, and a bit cloudy. Deep in the canyon and against this canyon wall, the best light is often that from completely clear daytime sky, since that sort of light reflects the best off of the canyon walls and carries with it the warm colors of the rock. Given that this was a tremendously windy day, the lack of leaf blur in this photograph indicates that it was made in a slightly sheltered area of the canyon and, no doubt, by waiting to shoot between the gusts.

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: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Escalante River, Cottonwood Trees, Autumn

December 29, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Large cottonwood trees with autumn leaves along the Escalante River, Utah

In many places like this one along the Escalante, the terrain seems to be largely a continuous repetition of one horseshoe bend after another, and each bend encourages me to want to see what will be ahead. When the river bends one way, the bottom of the canyon may be in sunlight; when it bends the other – and perhaps narrows around the apex of the bend – everything may be in deep shadow from the tall cliffs above the narrow canyon. In these bends it is often necessary to cross back and forth across the stream as the canyon narrows. (That ritual was a new one to me as a long-time Sierra Nevada hiker and backpacker. There a stream crossing or two in a day would typically be about it, and we tend to make a big deal out of them. Here you might cross a stream more than a dozen times in less than a mile!)

The location of this photograph was at one of those crossing points. The trail approached my camera position from up the canyon and around the bend along the right (from this point of view) side of the stream, crossed the river down among the trees, and then headed across a low hill to the left that skirted between the river and the base of the cliffs. When I arrived at this point and walked underneath this wildly colorful group of cottonwoods, I thought I’d like to find a way to photograph them, the river, and the dark upper canyon. So, before wading through the water I went ahead a bit and climbed up on a sort of ledge to this overlook from which I had a good view up the canyon. Because it was a partly cloudy day, the light here was in a constant state of change. When the clouds moved overhead, the canyon and the trees become quite dark. But a moment later the cloud would pass on and the sun lit the golden trees so brightly that it was almost impossible to photograph them and keep any light in the background canyon. So I watched and waited and made this exposure when the clouds partially obscured the direct sun, but still let in enough light to brighten the trees and cast soft shadows on the bank of the stream.

Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Santa Couch

December 28, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Santa Claus figure on a window behind a gaudily colorful couch on the front porch of an urban home, San Jose, California

Sometimes something catches my attention and I have to photograph it, even though I can’t quite put my finger on why. This might be one of those photographs. On this late afternoon of a late December day, I did something that I often seem to do about this time each year, namely take a camera and walk out my front door and wander around making photographs. I didn’t make too many on this day – perhaps fewer than two dozen.

When I carry the camera I see things that I would almost certainly miss completely if I were just out walking from point A to point B. With the camera in hand I tend to saunter along slowly, stopping to look at things or occasionally wander up a driveway. There is something just a bit strange about this giant, bright Alice-In-Wonderland couch with the face of Santa Clause peeking over the back.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: wall

Room for the Big Deep Bend

Single-Leaf Ash, Green and Yellow Leaves

Escalante River, Cottonwood Trees, Autumn

Santa Couch

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