G Dan Mitchell Photography

Sunrise Light, Twenty Mule Team Canyon. Death Valley National Park, California. April 2, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Detail of eroded formations at dawn in Twenty Mule Team Canyon, Death Valley National Park, California.

This photograph is pretty much all about the light – though the interesting and varied patterns of the wildly eroded hills in Twenty Mule Team Canyon also help.

Twenty Mule Team Canyon is just a short distance up the road from the famous and iconic Zabriskie Point (a downright iconic photograph of which I recently posted here). But while the throngs gather at Zabriskie every morning before and at dawn – with good reason – almost no one is to be found here during this time of beautiful light, even though it is in some ways almost as amazing as Zabriskie. I made this photograph at that magic moment when the sun was just coming over a nearby ridge and we see full sun on the formations at the upper right but somewhat subdued light closer in the foreground.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: twenty, mule, team, canyon, death valley, national park, california, usa, sunrise, dawn, light, erosion, folds, gully, ridge, hill, geology, colors, rock, dirt, gravel, pattern, shadow, landscape, detail, scenic, travel, stock, abstract

G Dan Mitchell :: Apr.30.2009 :: Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert :: No Comments »

Joe Decker offers a short list of tips for photographing wildlife, “Four Tips for Better Wildlife Photography,” at the Digital Photography School web site. I’m sometimes skeptical about short “4 tips” type articles, but each of Decker’s suggestions offers good advice that will be useful to folks trying to get better at this genre.

G Dan Mitchell :: Apr.29.2009 :: Commentary :: No Comments »

Morning, Manley Beacon. Death Valley National Park, California. April 3, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The iconic view of the morning sun striking Manley Beacon at Zabriskie Point with the Panamint Range in the distance – Death Valley National Park, California.

Yeah, it’s an icon… :-)

But I don’t think I’ve posted any photographs of similar landscape icons recently, so what the heck.

I shot this on the final morning of my early April, 2009 trip to Death Valley. I really didn’t go there to shoot this icon precisely – I originally thought that there might be some interesting clouds that morning (there weren’t) and my main goal was shooting detail photographs of the eroded landscape below and to the left of the camera position – actually more than 90 degrees to the left. But if you are at Zabriskie, there is a moment when the sun light finally makes its way across the valley and suddenly washes across Manley Beacon that is hard to resist – you’d have to be a stronger photographer than I am to not swing your camera in that direction.

In the end it is a pretty “vanilla” photograph of Manley Beacon – pretty much straight ahead lighting, no dramatic clouds in the sky, and I did not crank the contrast or saturation as you often see in photographs of this mountain. This is really pretty much what it looks like.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: manley, beacon, zabriskie, point, icon, mountain, hill, ridge, sunrise, dawn, morning, distance, death valley, national park, california, usa, scenic, travel, landscape, shadow, light, folds, eroded, gully, color, wash, stock

G Dan Mitchell :: Apr.29.2009 :: Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert :: No Comments »

I wrote earlier about the newest incarnation of the cool little Canon “Rebel” cameras, the T1i. It is also now in stock at B&H. This is a fine first DSLR, and for many people it may be all the camera they ever want or need.

G Dan Mitchell :: Apr.28.2009 :: Commentary :: No Comments »

I just received an email from B&H Photo reporting that they once again have the Canon EOS 5D Mark II in stock. If you are going to order online, B&H has a reputation for fair dealing, fair prices, and good customer support. Unlike some other dealers who pad the price by adding their own markup, B&H sells the 5DII at the list price of $2669.95. Free shipping is available – but you probably won’t want to wait that long… ;-)

(Purchasing through the links at the blog helps support the web site. Thanks in advance!)

G Dan Mitchell :: Apr.28.2009 :: Commentary :: No Comments »

I noticed a spike in visits this morning that I’ve traced back to a reference in a post at the 5DMk2 blog at 1001 Noisy Cameras to yesterday’s post here about Live View on the 5DII. Thanks for the link, and welcome to visitors entering my blog world through the 1001 Noisy Cameras doorway. (And for those who arrived via a different route, if you are interested in the 5D2 and related topics, you should wander on over to the 5DMK2 blog once you finish up here.)

The two points I wrote about yesterday (the benefits of live view for depth of field preview and for shooting with very dark ND filters) are not the only benefits of the live view feature. For example, I earlier wrote about its value when doing night photography, and quite a few of my recent wildflower photos took advantage of it. Before long I hope to write up a more complete article outlining the range of uses for live view.

If this is your first visit to my blog, take a look around. I post a daily photograph (recent work has come from Death Valley and a number of central California locations) and the occasional opinion or news piece. You can subscribe via RSS (link near the top of the page) and members are welcome to post discussion messages.

(Shortly after posting this I got a message from B&H photo saying that they again have the Canon EOS 5D Mark II in stock, and unlike some other dealers they sell it with no markups at the list price of $2669.95.)

G Dan Mitchell :: Apr.28.2009 :: Commentary :: No Comments »

Oaks, Hills, Clearing Morning Fog. Calero Hills, California. April 18, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning fog clears over oak dotted green and golden Calero Hills, California.

On this mid-April spring morning I had perhaps a half hour of what is almost my favorite type of light – the kind that forms along the border between cloud and sun as morning fog begins to clear. I had started out this hike in gray fog, but as I reached the top of a small hill the fog began to burn off… and I photographed like crazy as different portions of my surroundings were revealed and illuminated. On a technical note, this is another of my atypical telephoto landscapes, shot with a 400mm lens.

One more note about fog. Not only is it interesting in its own right, but sometimes it lines up just right to obscure things that would make a photograph of the scene less effective while showing elements that work well. That was the case here. The very faint suggestion of more distant hills at the far right is all that we can see in the fog – but once it cleared there was instead a rather stark ridgeline that held a power pole or two!

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: oak, tree, grove, grass, meadow, hill, valley, green, gold, morning, spring, calero, county park, calero, santa clara, landscape, nature, scenic, shadow, light, sun, california, usa, field, stock

G Dan Mitchell :: Apr.28.2009 :: Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature :: 2 Comments »