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

Bandlands, Morning Light

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Bandlands, Morning Light
Soft early-morning light on rugged and colorful badlands formations

Bandlands, Morning Light. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Soft early-morning light on rugged and colorful badlands formations.

On the final full day of our early-April 2019 photography visit to Death Valley we decided to head for a familiar location where I enjoy photographing in the morning. After being closed earlier in the season this area had finally reopened — flooding of washes in the area had interfered with access, and repairs had be recently completed.

The photographic opportunities in this area — and, to be honest, in many places — depend a lot on the specific qualities of the light during a visit. I’ve been here where clouds turned everything gray and when intense light made some portions of this landscape a bit too stark for my preferences. This morning was close to ideal. When we arrived, before dawn, there was a high overcast and the light was not all that spectacular. However, the clouds were thin, and as the sun rose the light made it thought the dissipating clouds — and this sort of high, thin clouds provide some of the most subtle and beautiful light.

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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Photographs: Nature

Baby Blue Eyes Flowers

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Baby Blue Eyes Flowers
Baby blue eyes flowers, San Luis Obispo County, California

Baby Blue Eyes Flowers. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Baby blue eyes flowers, San Luis Obispo County, California.

These small flowers, in the right light, can produce a nearly-fluorescent blue color — a hue that is almost unbelievable in the natural landscape. They were growing all over California’s coastal and inland oak and grassland areas this spring.

I photographed this set of flowers on a drive through a backroads area of San Luis Obispo Country, but I probably could have stopped any of 1000 other locations and found something similar. These specimens were growing in an immense meadow that was filled with all sorts of flowers.

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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Badlands, Morning

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Morning, Zabriskie Point
Layers of overlapping badlands formations in morning light, Death Valley National Park

Badlands, Morning. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Layers of overlapping badlands formations in morning light, Death Valley National Park.

This location provides a spectacular bit of Death Valley scenery, but it isn’t photographed as often as some nearby areas that are regarded as being more iconic. It also tends to be a bit more visually attractive, at least in my view, at a time of the day that is later than the usual “golden hour” morning time when most photographers tend to be in the area. Over the years I have had a sort of informal project to photograph this spot during these times.

This is also an older photograph — not from this year’s two visits to Death Valley but rather from a trip about eight years ago. Every so often I “discover” a photograph that I had overlooked when I originally made it. Missing them has puzzled me a bit, but I think it is some combination of moving on to the “next thing” a bit too quickly, not being ready to understand how to “see” the image as a final photograph right away, and being distracted by other contemporaneous work. Back then I did work up another view of this scene — it included more of the contrasting colors near the top of the frame, and by comparison this one may have seemed too subtle… which, of course, is now part of what I like about it!

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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Night, Photographs: People, Photographs: Urban/Street

Man With Ice Cream Bar

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Man With Ice Cream Bar
“Man With Ice Cream Bar” — A man eating an ice cream bar on a Manhattan night

As I continue revisiting some old raw file archives from nearly a decade ago, I’ve been going through some photographs from a weeklong visit to New York City. We were there partly for music-related activities, partly for family reasons, and partly to make photographs. A few years’ distance from the immediate experience lets me see the photographs a bit more objectively, I think, and I’ve found several that I think are worth sharing now.

For five or six years I’ve been doing a lot of handheld night street photography, but this photograph comes from before that period —actually from a single evening in Manhattan when I began photographing in twilight and just kept going. There are multiple ways to “read” this photograph. I think that one initial approach may be less than complimentary to the subject, but the more I think about it the more I see other perspectives that are positive. I’ll leave it to viewers to sort that out!

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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.