Capturing the Spectacular Landscapes of Texas
An astrophotographer documents the violence and beauty of the state’s diverse terrain
Last spring, when photographer Erin Newman-Mitchell scrambled onto the bed of her cherry red Toyota Tacoma to frame the perfect shot of meticulously planted rows at Wilder Family Sunflowers in Snook, fatigue set in. Sure, there was the adrenaline from taking another postcard-worthy picture of Texas’ native beauty, but the distance covered for that serendipitous snap was long and arduous. Practically speaking, there was the two-hour drive from her home in Austin. But before that, there was the nearly 250-mile move from Tyler when she was around 6 years old. And prior to that, a journey of more than 8,000 miles from Hoa Binh, Vietnam—where she was born—to her adopted Texas family in 1997.
And that says nothing about her journey as a photographer, which began when she picked up an iPhone in 2015 and started posting photos to Instagram. Even after enrolling at Austin Community College, then transferring to the University of Texas at Austin in 2017 with the intention of becoming a veterinarian, the camera kept calling to her.
“It really felt like, for once, I was good at something,” Newman-Mitchell says.
It’s a pursuit the 29-year-old self-taught photographer now practices with low-key intensity, her slight East Texas drawl belying a devotion to her craft that has taken her to the farthest corners of our state. She renders the familiar unfamiliar with a Leica M6 (for film) and a Sony A7RV (digital), chewing up untold miles of dirt and asphalt in a Tacoma pickup that offers refuge from the elements and a hint of altitude.
See, Newman-Mitchell is … not tall. Measuring just over 5 feet, she often shoots from the truck bed to gain the necessary overhead perspective for her work.
Throughout her 10-year career, certain locales continue to beckon to her from the road. A major one is Caddo Lake—along the border of Louisiana—where she often visited with her mother, Lisa, who passed away three years ago. Today, when she’s not camping in the area, she’s looking to capture the mist drifting between its famed bald cypress trees—images that can be eerie or somber, reflective or awe-inspiring. The setting is timeless, looking much as it has for centuries, no matter when she visits. “It’s beautiful during all times of year,” she says.
With sites like Caddo, the natural beauty of her home state remains her strongest muse. “One thing I love about Texas is that it has such a range,” she says, citing the mountains of Big Bend National Park, the swamps of East Texas, and the Edenic waters of Edge Falls near Kendalia and Sculpture Falls closer to home.
Take your best shot
Join Newman-Mitchell for two workshops in the Big Bend region starting in May. Attendees will learn how to plan, capture, and edit their own astrophotography images.
While many of her photos showcase the serenity found in nature, some illustrate the violence, terror, and just plain weirdness found there, too. Newman-Mitchell takes careful steps to create these seemingly spontaneous photos—such as one of Austin on a lightning-tinged night akin to something out of Frankenstein. Like Tyler Owens, Glen Powell’s tornado-obsessed meteorologist in Twisters, she monitors weather patterns, then consults a number of radar apps on her phone to ensure she’s stationed in the heart of a storm or natural phenomenon. This might mean training her lens on a comet as it flutters above a church near Cranfills Gap, or a lunar eclipse in a field near College Station.
Such images testify to the aesthetic virtues of traveling off the beaten path—and remind anyone who loves our state’s wildest wonders to keep on truckin’.
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This photo resonates with Newman-Mitchell because she took it with her mom at Caddo Lake, which she often visited as a child. It’s also cinematic in more ways than one—on Reddit, Celine Held and Logan George, the
directors of the film Caddo Lake, mentioned the picture as an inspiration for their 2024 movie.
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This shot, one of Newman-Mitchell’s favorites, was taken near Temple in 2021 after a rare snowstorm. Getting to the location was no easy task for the photographer—who had no experience driving in the snow—so she asked a friend from the Northeast to drive her there. “We were going so fast on Interstate 35 one of my windshield wipers flew off,” she says. “We found an AutoZone that was open, and then the other one flew off.”
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Taken along Old Blevins Road near Temple, this photo features a barn popular with Texas photographers. While Newman-Mitchell has never met the proprietor, a friend of hers has helped repaint the famous rooftop flag. Digitally stacking several images lends brightness to the nighttime scene, with one major assist: The ambient light on the right is from a nearby Buc-ee’s.
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After a few failed attempts to shoot the Texas Capitol from South Congress Avenue in Austin, Newman-Mitchell decamped to Lady Bird Lake for a nighttime stroll on the Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail. Because it wasn’t raining, she was able to include the full sky using the interpolate setting on her camera, which takes several longer exposures to better show the lightning strikes.
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Here’s something rare in Newman-Mitchell’s photos: a person, enjoying a steamy late fall row on Austin’s Lady Bird Lake. Don’t ask who it is, though, because the photographer doesn’t know. “Sometimes when I post things on Instagram or TikTok, people will be like, ‘Oh, I was out there that morning. Maybe that’s me!,’” she says.
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Wilder Family Sunflowers in Snook might have inspired Newman-Mitchell to get a truck, but for this shot she achieved an even higher angle by using a drone. “I’m a sucker for symmetry,” she says. “So, it’s neat to see the lines leading into the distance of infinite sunflowers.”
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Another favorite, this wintry picture was taken with a drone—which requires special permission on Capitol grounds. But bending the rules can lead to new perspectives, and this photo renders one of the state’s most iconic buildings in an unfamiliar way. “It’s the most unique building in Austin,” she says, “and it’s also very much Texas.”
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Newman-Mitchell’s gift for taking unconventional shots of familiar landscapes perhaps reaches its apex with this photo of Galveston’s Pleasure Pier. She woke up at 3 a.m. to drive down from Austin, hoping to take a sunrise photo. Instead, she found fog and a lone dog walker. The spare result has left even longtime Galvestonians momentarily wondering what, exactly, they’re seeing.
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Newman-Mitchell specializes in astrophotography, and photos like these, taken in Kerrville during the annular solar eclipse of 2023, require special equipment. Just like you shouldn’t stare at an eclipse, you shouldn’t point your camera at one, either. Instead, she uses a telephoto lens with a solar filter to protect her camera’s sensor from searing.
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This photo was taken in Terlingua on the night Newman-Mitchell’s mother told her she had been diagnosed with cancer. It depicts an abandoned car with a light on inside of it, creating an emotional tableau. “I was pretty distraught,” she says. “It took me a while to be able to visit Terlingua again.” To photograph the Milky Way in the background, Newman-Mitchell took several long exposure shots and stacked them using a
Mac app called Starry Landscape Stacker.
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The state flower of Texas is among the most photographed wildflowers, but rarely is it captured like in this shot from Wildseed Farms outside Fredericksburg. And while Newman-Mitchell is generally deliberate about what she photographs and when, this shot is an exception, taken just after she happened to drive past. On a return visit, she learned this neatly organized field of bluebonnets was a rarity at the farm.