Tag Archives: geology

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Trona Pinnacles

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Trona Pinnacles
“Trona Pinnacles” — Trona Pinnacles in early morning light.

Every time I visit Death Valley I pass close enough to these formations to see them standing in the distance, a striking sight in this otherwise flat valley where there was once a large lake. (They are tufa towers, formed when the area was submerged.) From time to time I detour to photograph them, but they have been a tough subject. I made this photograph on another of those detours, stopping between Ridgecrest and Death Valley before sunrise. The light proved to be challenging, but I had a few moments of lovely side-light shortly after sunrise.

The photograph is a liberal interpretation of the scene. Obviously, the subject is not really monochromatic, but I chose that route because it seems more dramatic. By the use of filters (here in software, but the effect is the same as we got in the old days with glass filters) I have accentuated the contrast in the sky to produce the effect that I had in mind when I photographed here.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Commentary, Conservation/Environment, Ideas, Locations, News, Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Southern California, Thinking Aloud

Death Valley on My Mind

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Wash and Alluvial Fan
Morning light on a giant alluvial fan at the base of a desert mountain wash.

Wash and Alluvial Fan. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Morning light on a gigantic alluvial fan at the base of desert mountains, Death Valley National Park.

This morning I am waking up in a place that is almost literally on the other side of the world from my “home country” of California. As I look out the window from a home in Kosovo toward high mountains at the start the day I am thinking about the storm impacting my state today, and the deserts regions such as Death Valley are especially on my mind as I read reports of tropical storm Hilary.

Our natural impression of places like Death Valley National Park (the part of California’s desert terrain that I know best) is of dryness, heat, aridity… of places where little grows and where challenges human visitors. It isn’t quite that simple, but there is truth to this. Our biggest concerns in such places are often the heat and the scarcity of water.

But I have long been impressed by the fact that there are few locations where the impact of water is more clearly visible than in the desert, especially in the rugged terrain of places like Death Valley. The valley was once a lake. Remnant water from that lake still appears and flows there. The tremendous mountains on either side of the valley were eroded and formed by water, and monumental alluvial fans flow out of side canyons everywhere. Deep watercourses cut through rock, and a close look at stones reveals that they were moved by water.

Even when we recognize the landscape-forming power of water, we still think of the landscape as now being static — formed by forces that worked in the past but now have left a stable geography. A few rocks fall, occasionally a wash overflows and takes out a small section of a road, a playa may fill temporarily with water… but soon everything is back to “normal” as it was.

But this morning it sounds like we may experience much more profound changes as Hilary sweeps though, the sort that occur at intervals measured centuries. Those of us who love this landscape may find our access cut off and that much changes after this storm. I’m both excited by and fearful of these effects — but in any case this is a powerful reminder of the scale of the forces at work in these places we love.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Desert Mountains, Morning Haze

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Desert Mountains, Morning Haze
Morning haze obscures the details on a series of desert mountains, Death Valley National Park.

Desert Mountains, Morning Haze. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Morning haze obscures the details on a series of desert mountains, Death Valley National Park.

This is another serendipitous photograph, and if you compared it to many of the other photographs I made at this location you would never guess that they came from the same place, same time, and same conditions. I was there to photograph dawn light on some nearby geological features. Dawn arrived with beautiful saturated light and clear air. When I finished with that I turned around to face the rising sun… and found the landscape’s details almost obliterated by the glowing, back-lit haze.

I’m not sure what, exactly, typifies a “typical” Death Valley photograph — but I know that these conditions were somewhat unusual. The haze made the successive hills fade into the distance, and the foreground area with the clearest details was in shadows. In the end, I think it has a mood that is different from any of my other photographs from Death Valley.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Badlands Canyon

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Badlands Canyon
Badlands hills and slopes rise from a Death Valley wash.

Badlands Canyon. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Badlands hills and slopes rise from a Death Valley wash.

The impetus for this photograph was originally the dark rocks distributed across the smooth, hard surface in the foreground. I started from a camera position to the right of this scene, photographing across the rocks and into the light, which backlit the rocks and made the smooth surface glow. But I wasn’t quite happy with the result so I moved around a bit… and eventually decided to place this ascending canyon behind the rocks.

This part of Death Valley National Park, like other locations there, features stratified deposits of remarkably contrast colors and textures. Here nearly back layers alternate with other layers that are almost white. The formations go on for great distances, and you can see that a bit here by looking up the valley in the center to distant peaks with similar erosion patterns.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

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