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
Hi Greg… Yes, the hills really are changing already. When they change around here, they do so very quickly. Often during April we go from what I call “impossibly green” at the start of the month to largely brown by the end. To some extent the process was accelerated a bit this year by a few days of record-setting heat.
If you look around in places other than the open hillsides (a few of which are still green) you can find lush growth. For example, last weekend I was at Point Lobos – where there were still many wildflowers and where the grasses were still green and thriving in the pine forest back from the shoreline. Head up north of San Francisco to places like Muir Woods and you’ll still see lots of green.
Dan
Nice shot. Have the hills all changed over to this brownish/greenish shade already?
Where are the Calero Hills that you’ve been showing on your web site? What town are they near? Google Maps doesn’t have a clue where they are. :)
greggl
http://www.lowrimore.com