All posts by G Dan Mitchell

G Dan Mitchell, photographer and visual opportunist focusing on the Pacific coast, the Sierra Nevada, redwood forests, California oak/grasslands, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography and more. Posting daily photographs since 2005, along with articles, reviews, news, and ideas.

Morning Musings

Morning Musings (8/17/14)

August 17, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

If you don’t already follow The Online Photographer (or “TOP”), wander on over there and take a look. The slightly idiosyncratic blog often offers articles and commentary that provide interesting insights and which might make you look at things a bit differently. I read it regularly.

I’m mentioning TOP this morning because of something I saw there recently, a “something” that is directly related to this post, namely the TOP posts shared as “The Morning Coffee.” These are typically relatively short posts on a variety of subjects and at least giving the feeling of being somewhat informal posts written over a cup of coffee. Hey, I’m usually up early. I drink coffee. I like to write. Hence my own new “Morning Musings” series. We’ll see where it leads.

My “musing” for today relates to something from my recent trip to New York City. The brief story — likely to be expanded upon soon in other posts — is that I got to spend about a week wandering around Manhattan and Brooklyn with a camera. I had been thinking about doing some handheld night street photography for some time, and I had the opportunity on this trip. On one particular night, after emerging from a musical performance at a club, we headed off toward another performance in a nearby park. As we walked, hours after sunset, I pulled out my smaller “street” camera with a f/1.4 lens, raised ISO to 1600 or 3200 and started shooting. The ability to do this — shoot handheld in the middle of the night — was incredibly liberating. I’ve done a lot of tripod-based traditional night photography, but the technology of these newer cameras lets us shoot the night in an entirely different way, capturing quickly appearing subjects and conditions in ways that were essentially impossible only a few years ago. (Photos upcoming in the next week or two.)

Musing written. Coffee consumed. Now off to make some photographs…

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: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Wildlife

Elephant Seals and Blue Water

August 17, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Elephant seals resting on a Southern California beach at the edge of the water

This time of year, a lot of elephant seal photographs are likely to be “elephant seals napping/resting/sleeping on beach” photographs, since that seems to be how these critters spend the bulk of their time. If 100 of them are around the beach, perhaps two are out for a swim, and occasionally one or two might move around a bit or engage in some biting, butting battles with one another, but the rest pretty much must there, occasionally flipping some sand on their backs or scratching somewhere.

This large group was crowded together tightly right along the edge of the wave line. For the most part there was little or no action, though occasionally one would come or go, or one might jockey for a more favorable position in the pile. I realized that if I moved further away from their position that I could shoot back over them right along the beach, and once I got to this camera position I realized that the wet sand beautifully reflected the blue of the sky.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Wildlife

Elephant Seals, Point Piedras Blancas

August 16, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Elephant seals massed along the edge of the beach at Point Piedras Blancas, California

Photographing elephant seals was not originally port of my (somewhat vague) plan when I set out for the Big Sur coast on this one day outing. I started out fairly early heading south, figuring that I would just stop at whatever seemed interesting along the way. It was quite foggy across the Salinas Valley near the outlet of the Salinas River, so I wasn’t sure what I would find on the coast. But when I got there the fog was thinning quickly, so I had a lot of opportunities for seascape/landscape photography along the periphery of the fog. Continuing south I eventually “ran out of fog” and as it became midday the light was less inspiring, so I set a new goal of looking for lunch! After lunch I continue south a bit more and crossed the lowlands south of Ragged Point.

As I drove past the elephant seal viewing area, which I had last visited in the winter when the newborn seals were still there, I was a little surprised to find a decent number of seals. Since the good light for photography on the return drive was still a ways off, I figured that photographing elephant seals was as good of a way to spend an hour as any so I stopped and made some photographs. The place is quite different without all of the newborn seals. There were far fewer seals and almost all were relatively large. Mostly they lay around, either up on the beach a ways or else lined up side to side right at the waterline as this group is doing.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Tree, Soberanes Canyon

August 15, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A lone tree at the base of rugged Soberanes Canyon

The Soberanes Canyon and Creek area of the upper Big Sur coast is, to me, a particularly interesting spot. Here in one place are a number of the characteristic features of this coastline: rocky sea stacks, rigged shoreline backed by coastal bluffs, big surf, beaches, a coastal valley leading steeply up into the mountains, and, of course, fog. It is a popular place, and there are often many cars stopped here. Some people park and head toward the ocean, while others head away and climb up the canyon.

The canyon leading up and away from the coast has intrigued me for a long time, though it wasn’t until relatively recently that I began to explore the area more carefully. One of the first things I realized about this canyon is that it can create some special conditions of light and atmosphere in the morning. Mornings are often a bit tricky on this coast, since if faces west and the sun rises behind tall mountains to the east. However, when the conditions are right, as the sun tops the high ridge the light often comes down into the canyon and backlights the coastal haze, obscuring the details of the canyon and sometimes creating a mystical quality.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

All posts by G Dan Mitchell

Morning Musings (8/17/14)

Elephant Seals, Point Piedras Blancas

Tree, Soberanes Canyon

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.