Tag Archives: light

Death Valley, Mountains, Morning

Death Valley, Mountains, Morning
Morning light on Death Valley and the base of the Panamint Mountain Range

Death Valley, Mountains, Morning. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light on Death Valley and the base of the Panamint Mountain Range

A few recent photographs here have focused on the intimate landscapes of Death Vally canyons. This one leaves the canyon and moves out into the open, looking from the eastern mountains across valley to the base of the Panamint range on the other side. We had driven up in to these mountains in the morning after first photographing dawn from the valley. Here we could watch the morning light traverse the valley — in the photograph it still had not made it to the low hills below our position.

At about the time of my first visits to Death Valley I had also made my first trips to Alaska. It may seem odd, given their different climates, but it struck me that the two places have a lot in common. Most of all, in both places I experiences huge spaces and immense quiet and stillness in ways that I had not really known before. (I rarely experience this in the Sierra, even above timberline, since the distances are smaller and somewhere in the landscape there will be a tree.) In Death Vally, it is hard to make sense of the scale of the landscape. The combination of huge distances, tremendously large features, and a dearth of objects of known size conspire to confuse us. Look across flats to a barren mountain and its valleys, it might seem that you could just walk there. You could, perhaps, but it might take many days.


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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Mountains And Salt Flats, Morning

Death Valley, Mountains, Morning
Water seeping onto salt flats reflects morning light on Panamint Mountains

Death Valley, Mountains, Morning. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Mountains And Salt Flats, Morning

On your first visit to Death Valley and to this particular spot in the park, you might be surprised to find water here. I know I was the first time I saw the spot so many years ago. As I drove past on a road through the valley I thought I saw water on the salt flats, but I suspected that it was just a mirage. But I kept seeing it on subsequent visits and before long I stopped, got out, and walked out there to see what was going on. From the roadway one walks across a low-angle gravel fan that is one of the more desolate spots in Death Valley. At the right time during the right years, there actually can be flowers growing here for a short time, but it small numbers and widely scattered. On this recent visit, even though there were flowers around, I found spots out here where I would see literally nothing growing at all.

At the bottom of the gravel fan one enters salt weed or salt grass, an extremely hardy plant that grows in some of the most hostile locations imaginable — as long as there is some water, even if it is full of salt and chemicals. Passing through this area makes for difficult walking, between the rough but sometimes muddy ground and the sharp branches of the plant. Beyond the plants water seeps onto the salt flat, barely moving at all, then slowly travels in narrow and very shallow sheets down toward even lower portions of the valley. Surprisingly, things do live here, including insects and, on occasion, some rather exuberant birds. If you stand in just the right place, at sunrise the early morning light on the Panamint Mountain Range is reflected in these ponds.


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

Creosote Bushes, Dunes At First Light

Creosote Bushes, Dunes At First Light
First light on sand dunes and a pair of creosote bushes, Death Valley

Creosote Bushes, Dunes At First Light. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

First light on sand dunes and a pair of creosote bushes, Death Valley

I made this photograph during that short, beautiful period when the day’s first light arrives in the desert. I had spotted these clumps of creosote plant earlier, when the light was still pre-dawn blue. I made a few photographs at that point which, of course, have an entirely different feeling than this one. I think I had begun to move on to another subject when I decided to instead stick with this one as the sun rose behind distant mountains. The first light struck the top of dunes to my left (not visible in this photograph), and as the angle of the light increased with the rising sun it began to sweep across nearer dunes beyond the plants.

The color contrasts here are, I think, quite something, even with the overall soft quality of the scene and the light. That one band of dune just beyond the plants is very colorful in the early direct light. Beyond the sun is just beginning to strike a few other dunes. In the far distance the hills and washes at the east side of Death Valley are still in the blue morning twilight shadows. The creosote plants are still in shade — but not for long — and silhouetted against the more colorful den.


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

Dunes, Light And Shadow

Dunes, Light And Shadow
A curving interaction between light and shadow on Death Valley sand dunes

Dunes, Light And Shadow. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A curving interaction between light and shadow on Death Valley sand dunes

The visual patterns of desert sand dunes can quickly become a sort of photographers’ playground. While we often may go out looking for individual subjects and composition (the “perfect photograph of that mountain”), once in the sand dunes there are likely to be photographs almost everywhere we look. The subjects are remarkably varied, ranging from the smallest to the largest, from nearly pure abstraction to literal depictions, including human elements or not, and changing over the course of the day and in evolving light. Topping another wave of sand or curving around into a new hollow can bring a whole new set of possible photographs.

I made this photograph on a morning when we walked out into a lonely section of dunes before sunrise. I generally tend to photograph more “literal” subjects in that softer pre-sunrise illumination. That softness quickly disappears with the sunrise most days, and I begin to look for more stark compositional contrasts. Here I was attracted but the abstract shape of the sand that was struck by the light, and the suggestively organic shapes of the curve.


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 | Twitter | FacebookGoogle+ | LinkedIn | Email


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