Tag Archives: zion

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

Streamside Foliage, Autumn Color

November 27, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

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.

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

Tall Cottonwood, Sandstone Canyon

November 24, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

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.

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

Zion Canyon Trees — Three Photographs

November 20, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Not wanting to string this out too long, I’m grouping some photographs together in single posts. This set includes three from Zion Canyon, near the road’s end and the beginning of the route into the Narrows. (My hiking on this visit was largely limited to this short walk, as I had messed up my knee a few days earlier.)

I find the juxtaposition of canyon trees, especially when the foliage is taking on fall colors, and the sandstone cliff walls to be irresistible. Here the trees are mostly cottonwoods — including some very large and old specimens — and perhaps a few box elders. The coloration of the sandstone in this part of the world varies, sometimes in obvious ways (such as the contrasting red and white layers higher in the park) and sometimes more subtly. Here the contrast is subtle, with some of these rocks picking up an almost purple quality, which is then further modified by the color of light reflecting down from canyon walls high above.

And old cottonwood tree towers over streamside autumn foliage deep in a sandstone canyon

This giant and magnificent tree stands near a trail junction in a curve of the canyon, from some angle forming an impressive centerpiece of this amphitheater-like location.

Box elder trees with autumn foliage along the base of a sandstone cliff

The box elder trees provide much the same fall color as the aspens, but they have a more delicate form, with thinner branches that seem to more likely bend and drop toward the ground.

Autumn color along a canyon stream at the base of sandstone cliffs

These colorful trees are just a few of many that grow along the edges of the Virgin River as it flows right along the base of this sandstone cliff at the bottom of the canyon.

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

Maple Leaves and Sandstone

July 13, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Fallen autumn maple leaves lie on pink sandstone slabs in the high country of Zion National Park

Wind is not usually the photographer’s friend, at least when the photographer is shooting natural subjects that include foliage. Later on this trip we were stymied by strong winds when shooting in the Escalante River Canyon, as the trees and leaves were being whipped around in the gale. But the same winds that create these problems – and I was experiencing some of them with tree photographs on this day, too – also bring down the autumn leaves and in the right conditions can create a thick carpet of the wild fall colors.

This photograph, like quite a few I have shared recently, was made in the bottom of a wash where leaves tend to collect, but by means of water flow and, as here, due to the wind. These maple leaves ranged in color from yellow-gold through orange to almost red, and here they littered the rocks in the bottom of the channel. Like spring flowers, these colors are a fleeting thing, and the leaves on the ground quickly blow away or turn brittle and brown.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: zion

Streamside Foliage, Autumn Color

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Tall Cottonwood, Sandstone Canyon

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Zion Canyon Trees — Three Photographs

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Maple Leaves and Sandstone

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

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