Forest in Afternoon Light. North Coast, California. October 29, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A dense forest backlit by afternoon light along the Northern California coast.
If you follow my blog, you know that I frequently photograph all around the Sierra, in the deserts east and south of the range, in coastal California in the San Francisco Bay Area and south, and even in the Central Valley. I’m almost a bit embarrassed, however, to admit to barely having scratched the surface of the photographic opportunities of “real” northern California, along the coast or inland. While I frequently shoot north of San Francisco, most of this work has been done no farther north than about Point Reyes.
This past weekend my wife and I managed a quick getaway that took us up to and slightly beyond Mendocino, where we spent a couple of nights. This wasn’t meant to be a photographic excursion, but I have a very understanding wife! She did not object when I stopped from time to time on our drive to get out the camera gear and make a few photographs. Truth be told, she made a few herself! I tried to keep the photography under control – after all, this trip was more about relaxing, seeing the sights, enjoying some good food, and so forth – but I did stop a few times make some photographs. And I also realized that I really need to head back up into this area and begin to seriously explore this region that is right at my virtual doorstep, and which is in many ways quite different from the “other Californias” that I’ve become familiar with.
This photograph was made in an extensive deciduous forest in a more or less random spot along the road, north of Fort Bragg and in an area where highway 1 takes an inland jog.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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.
Thanks, Richard! And, yes, the amount of detail in this forest was just amazing – almost overwhelming, actually. (Secret: I almost didn’t photograph it, but my wife basically said, “If you won’t I will.” ;-)
And it is every bit as nice and as spectacular as Big Sur, even with some of the same sorts of features. I imagine that it is a lot like what Big Sur might have been some decades ago when California was a less-populated place. Though I think it will be a long time before the same crowds go up there since, believe it or not, the roads are worse and they don’t lie between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Dan
Great shot Dan. Amazing amount of texture in this. I’d like to explore more of Sonoma and Mendocino some day as well. There’s so few people up there compared to areas like Big Sur yet every bit as nice.