Tag Archives: wilderness

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

Canyon Walls, Reflected Light

November 7, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

On this day I visited — though just barely — an area of slot canyons in southern Utah. I rarely do much advance research when I plan to photograph in a new area, generally preferring to discover the place for myself. This has both advantages and disadvantages. I certainly make my share of missteps and sometimes miss spectacular locations on my initial visits. On the other hand, when I come with few preconceptions I am free to make my own relationship with these places and perhaps I am forced to look a bit more carefully at what I see.

I had a vague plan to visit an area where there are some fairly well-known features, though I did not plan to visit the most popular of them, preferring to avoid the need to special permits and the attendance line-waiting. So I got a map (one without a lot of detail) and figured out where to find a gravel side road to a place with a name I had heard of, and I headed that direction. I parked at another place with a name that sounded familiar, loaded up and started walking down a valley with a good size wash. Soon the walls closed in on both sides and I entered an area of slot canyon. There is much to see and feel in these canyons, but my attention is often focused on the light, which does astonishing things when it bounces down between higher red rock canyon walls. As I came to this spot I was taken aback by the intensity of the brilliant blue tones when open sky reflected on the shiny surface of the rock, contrasting with the intense reddish tones of red rock illuminated by red reflected light, and creating almost sensuous forms in the rock walls.

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

Forest, Granite Bowl

November 7, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening light on forests and a glaciated granite bowl, Yosemite National Park

Large slabs of nearly unbroken granite, left behind in the wake of ancient glaciers, are a prominent and characteristic feature of the high country of Yosemite National Park. There is granite all of the Sierra, but this granite often seems to me to be more intact, and rather than encountering fields of broken rock it is common to come across these beautiful structures of exfoliating granite, often still with areas of smooth and reflective glacial polish. Scattered trees have taken hold in surprisingly thin cracks.

This bowl is in such a characteristic place, in the bottom of a great river canyon, just where it begins to become narrower and steeper. The area clearly shows the effects of glaciation, from the smooth rock in the canyon bottom to the sculpted domes and faces above. I have photographed in this bowl before on several occasions, and despite shooting there many times I continue to find new ways to see it every time I visit.

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

Dry Mud and Sand

November 5, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A dry and curled layer of mud atop red sand in the bottom of a Utah canyon

It might be amusing for “normal people” to encounter a group of photographers in the bottom of a narrow Utah canyon, where the photographers might be found clustered attentively and enthusiastically around… dry mud. That was the case here, as a group of use suddenly halted our progress down a small (though much larger later on) canyon to set up tripods, fit just the right lenses, and spend about a half hour making photographs of mud.

However, as is often the case in landscape photography, it turns out that even dried mud may have a lot more going on than a casual glance would suggest. For people who are not particularly conscious of their “seeing,” it would be easy to walk past and think, “that curled mud is very interesting” and not pay much more attention to it. However, a bit of time spent in these narrow canyon walls teaches you to become alert to the possibility that you might be missing certain things. One bit of visual magic in these canyons happens during the middle part of the day, when the sun directly strikes the red rock canyon walls and reflects this red-saturated light down into the bottom of the canyon. Once you train yourself to see past what your visual system tells you it is seeing (brown mud) you can begin to see the intensely red coloration of this light and even begin to notice that there is a blue component where direct light from the open sky reflects off of some surfaces. And then, you may also find yourself intently focusing on making a photograph of a small patch of dry and cracked mud sitting atop red sand.

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

Peninsula, Trees, Evening Light

November 3, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Evening light comes to a tree-dotted peninsula on a subalpine lake, Yosemite National Park

A subalpine Sierra Nevada lake like this one, where I photographed over the course of six days in September, is both a comforting source of familiarity and an opportunity to seek and discover new things. Anyone who has spent much time in the Sierra back county is familiar with lakes like this one. It is set in a very shallow bowl between higher ridges in most directions, a low and rock ridge in another, and a forested valley holding its outlet stream. This one is entirely surrounded by forest, dense and growing right to the shoreline in places, and sparse and rocky in others. A walk around the lake — and I made quite a few of these walks! — reveals marshy sections, places steep and rocky enough to make passage challenging, rocky outcroppings, views through trees, small granite islands, and more.

These walks almost inevitably brought us to the far end of the lake, near the marshy outlet, where this granite peninsula extends into the lake and supports ground cover and a few isolated trees. As we explored and photographed individually, it was not unusual for us to run into one another in this spot where there are so many interesting possibilities. The peninsula was a bit of an enigma for me. Its visual appeal was immediate — the individual trees standing in the light, the granite rocks, the open views of surrounding terrain, and its path away from the shore and out into the lake. But once there, I discovered that it was not as easy to photograph as I might have expected! Despite its obvious appeal, there were challenges — how to find an effective background, getting just the right light, and placing the individual components of the scene into a pleasing composition. On this evening I shot with a wide-angle lens and decided to work the curving shoreline that faced the late-day light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: wilderness

Canyon Walls, Reflected Light

Forest, Granite Bowl

Dry Mud and Sand

Peninsula, Trees, Evening Light

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