Monthly Archives: February 2011

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Stack of Pelicans

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Stack of Pelicans
Stack of Pelicans

Stack of Pelicans. Pacific Ocean Coast, California. May 15, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A vertical column of pelicans stacked one above the other along the Pacific Ocean coastline of California.

On a slow night this week – while waiting for a new hard drive to get backed up – I want back through some more raw files from the first half of 2010. Almost invariably, when I go back through older collections of images I find at least a few things that seem interesting to me know even though they didn’t really register at the time I shot them

I have previously shared some other photographs of these magnificent Pacific Coast birds that I made on this mid-May evening along the Pacific Coast Highway north of Santa Cruz, shooting from a bluff locations that I often return to. At this particular spot, when the conditions are just right, birds coming north up the coast and coasting on updrafts along the cliffs often climb toward the top of the bluff and frequently turn inland a bit right here as they come around an outcropping. That is what happened with these pelicans, who were coming almost towards me and were flying below my position on top of the bluff, creating what looks like a vertical stack of birds. How thoughtful of them to line up so that they fit perfectly within a 3:2 ratio portrait orientation frame! :-)

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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Commentary, Events, News, Photographs: Night, Technique

Night Photography With ‘The Nocturnes’

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Moonlit Stairway, Wall, and Window
Moonlit Stairway, Wall, and Window

Moonlit Stairway, Wall, and Window. Mare Island Naval Shipyard, California. February 27, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Once or twice each year I have the opportunity to do night photography with The Nocturnes, the San Francisco Bay Area night photography group mostly organized by Tim Baskerville and Susan Nichols. I like to join up with them for their expeditions to the historic Mare Island Ship Yard in Vallejo, and I’ll be joining them again later this week to shoot there. (Mare Island is where this photograph and quite a bit of my other night photography work has been done.) I’m afraid that this week’s event is currently fully booked, but Bay Area photographers looking for an introduction to night photography have a tremendous local resource in The Nocturnes, through their web sites, their promotion of outstanding night photography work, and through the workshops and classes they offer.

While I’m on the subject of night photography, I’d like to share a post I wrote some time back on the subject: Hints for Night Photography. While there is ultimately a lot to learn and understand if you will do night photography, and there are a wide range of techniques that you might employ for different subjects and ways of shooting, there are some basics that can get you a long ways towards creating interesting night photographs. This post is intended to be a brief list of some of those basics.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Email
Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay, Morning Haze

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Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay, Morning Haze
Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay, Morning Haze

Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay, Morning Haze. San Francisco, California. February 5, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Winter morning haze partially obstructs the view across San Francisco Bay, including the Golden Gate Bridge, Treasure Island, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and the city of Oakland.

I made this photograph shortly after dawn on a warm winter morning, shooting from the Marin Headlands of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and aiming back across the bay toward downtown Oakland. The atmosphere is a bit misleading here – although it looks somewhat dark and cloudy, most of the sky was clear and sunny. The haze was only in the very lower portion of the atmosphere and mainly over Oakland. By using a long lens I telescoped the distances between my position and the rest of the scene and between the elements of the scene.

The foreground structure is probably familiar to most who know anything about the San Francisco Bay Area. It is the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, here mostly backlit but with a bit of side light coming from the left. There is a lot of stuff in the distance, and some explanation may help. The closest land beyond the waters of the Bay is historic Treasure Island with its old military base buildings, though it is now being transformed for civilian use. Beyond Treasure Island is a maze of industrial elements. First, just beyond the island, are the eastern spans of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The old bridge is still in place as a newer bridge is being constructed to replace it. The tallest tower is part of the new bridge, which sits in front of the old one. Beyond that are the giant cranes of the busy Port of Oakland, and even further back in the haze are the buildings of downtown Oakland backed by the East Bay Hills.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Email
Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, Morning Haze

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Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, Morning Haze
Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, Morning Haze

Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, Morning Haze. San Francisco Bay, California. February 5, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of Golden Gate Bridge north tower, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and the East Bay Hills in morning haze.

I sometimes enjoy playing the juxtaposition game, going up into the Marin Headlands and using a long lens to juxtapose elements of the Golden Gate Bridge with other elements of the landscape, human and natural, of San Francisco Bay. One of the most iconic examples of such photographs is the one that many have shot (including me!) that centers the tip of the Transamerica building within a frame formed by the north tower of the bridge. But there are many other possibilities that might be at least as interesting, and which may depend more on the changing and often very interesting conditions of atmosphere and light over the bay.

This photograph was made from a point very close to that from which the Transamerica building photograph can be made, but a bit higher on the road up into the headlands. When I arrived just before dawn in the general area there were quite a few other photographers who I presume were there to photograph the dawn scene. (This is a difficult task, as it requires you to shoot essentially directly into the sun if you want San Francisco in your shot.) I was surprised when essentially all of the other photographers packed up and left a few minutes after the sun came up! (In their defense, it was windy up there – so windy that it made shooting with a long lens quite a challenge!) The sunrise wasn’t all that amazing, at least not if you know this area pretty well. But the low haze/fog over the east bay hills and some overhead clouds filtering the light a bit created the potential for some interesting and moody light – at least if I used a long lens to isolate small sections of the scene.

I’m almost a bit embarrassed to admit that I picked my first shooting location not based on the scene but rather on trying to avoid the wind! I went up the road to a spot where I could shoot in the lee of a hill side. After getting that out of my system, I went the other way and entered a very windy area along the road below the parking lot. I eventually found a spot that lined up the two great bridges of San Francisco Bay – the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge in the foreground and two towers and a central span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in the distance, both backed by that low fog and haze and beyond the East Bay Hills.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Email
Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.