Rain Squall, Monument Valley. Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Arizona, October 12, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Distant mesas and towers of Monument Valley, veiled by a passing rain squall
I have a bit of a surprising confession to make. Utah is not the only state in the American Southwest that I had not previously photographed. Although I have been in the state before, I had never photographed there prior to this year, when we made a quick pass though the upper portion of the state on a drive between Moab and Zion National Park. Several things explain this. First, as I’ve written before, I’ve long been a California landscape bigot – the “local” landscapes of ocean and mountains and deserts and redwoods and more have been, and continue to be, such a focus that I’ve felt little inclination to shoot elsewhere. More recently, as I discovered Utah, I felt a bit of an obligation to avoid Arizona for certain other reasons that I won’t go into right now.
That’s right. I’ve never photographed the Grand Canyon. In fact, I haven’t even seen the Grand Canyon except from the air while flying over the state. And, no, I had not seen Monument Valley either. As we left Moab and headed south, I was excited about seeing this new landscape, but a bit concerned about the potential for photography as a storm – and not just the afternoon monsoon – was moving through. Sure enough, just about the time we got near to Monument Valley the clouds thickened, the wind blew, and it began to rain in earnest. However, I soon caught sight of the towers and mesas of this valley in the distance, familiar from so many photographs I’ve seen, and I quickly realized that the rainy conditions were actually going to provide some very special light and effects. This photograph is a case in point. It was cloudy but not raining at my camera position. Just beyond, a passing squall was dropping rain across the desert terrain and muting and blurring the features, but beyond that the sun was shining on the stupendous distant formations, and beyond them broken clouds were moving.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Great shot Dan. I love both the composition and the softness of the background towers and mesas I presume the result of shooting through rain over that distance. I have long wanted to go to Utah myself to photograph. Being unemployed these days, I have the time, just not the money, and so my own photography is lagging. I have high hopes of making it out there in the next couple of years though!
You got it – shooting right through a curtain of rain that was just starting to hit us, and perhaps a second curtain further out. That softness created by the rain, especially with the diffused light on the far towers, was what caught my attention.
To encourage you… this was my first time shooting in Arizona, and this year was my first shooting in Utah!
Dan