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.
Two apartment windows look out from an upper story apartment in Brooklyn, New York.
Looking through the curtains of this upper story apartment in Brooklyn, New York, the upper walls and rooftops of surround apartment buildings are visible.
(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts when this page is viewed on the web. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)
Freighter approaching the Golden Gate as it departs from San Francisco Bay.
On this hazy but fog-less August morning I had stopped above the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge on my way north towards Point Reyes, where I planned a day of photography. I cross the bridge frequently, but I almost always schedule my crossings for times when the light might be interesting, at least if I have any control over my schedule. A summer day like this can bring any of a wide range of conditions: the bridge and bay could be totally socked in my fog, a finger of fog might extend inland while everything else is for-free, the sky could be crystal clear. On this morning the morning haze obscured a lot fo the long views… but it also increased the sense of distance and hid some distracting background elements that might have been visible in clearer conditions.
Some minutes earlier, while photographing a very different landscape from this spot, I had seen this ship beginning its outbound voyage all the way back under the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Having watched these ships before I knew that it would eventually make its way past Treasure Island, around Alcatraz, make a wide loop, and then turn back to cross in front of me as it approached the passage through the Golden Gate. With this in mind, I kept an eye on it, and once it cleared Alcatraz I kept a close eye on it, making this exposure just as it made its final turn toward the Bridge with only the surface of the bay, the faint and distant hills, and the sky creating a blue background.
(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts when this page is viewed on the web. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)
Main tent at Bearpaw Camp, Bearpaw Meadow along the High Sierra Trail through Sequoia National Park.
I photographed the main tent (also known as the dining hall) at Bearpaw Camp back in 2008 while hiking the High Sierra Trail across the Sierra from west to east and culminating at Mount Whitney. This was the second time that I hiked this wonderful trail, having previously hiked it several decades earlier with my wife. On this second trip I was traveling with my “back-country friends,” a somewhat informally organized group known as the “talusdancers.” It is a long story…
A photograph of one of these old camps, much like the high sierra camps of Yosemite, always seems to recall images of the “old-time” Sierra for me. One of my first experiences in the high country of the Sierra involved a similar, though less isolated, seasonal tent camp in Yosemite – the Tuolumne Meadows Lodge. My dad had finally summoned up the courage to take his two oldest kids – that would be me and my younger brother, Richard – on what we thought might be a backpacking trip out of Tuolumne. As I recall (though the memory is now a bit hazy) it was September, and we were surprised by snow and cold. Somehow we ended up in one of the tents at the Tuolumne Meadows Lodge, keeping warm by using the little wood stove in the tent, and eating in the dining hall.
As I got older my interests turned to backpacking (and eventually cross-country skiing, some winter camping, and even a bit of rock climbing) and I regarded these camps, even those in the back-country, as being sissy-fied versions of the real thing. But at the same time, I began to develop an appreciation for the back-country history that they connect to in a real and physical way, and also through some of the employees who have worked these places for years or even decades.
In any case, on this August morning my friends and I broke camp a bit to the west of Bearpaw meadow and started hiking. When we got here, even though we are all confirmed back-country types, we couldn’t resist stopping at the main tent and having a look around. The woman inside invited us in. Two of my friends were astonished to find a place like this on the trail that they decided to sit down and order glasses of wine (at the mid-morning hour!) just because they could.
(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts when this page is viewed on the web. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)
Eastern Sierra Nevada thunderstorms build over Mono Lake, Mono Craters, and Lee Vining, California.
Mono Lake can be an unforgiving place in which to try to make photographs during the day, but sometimes one gets lucky! It is a wonderful place, but if you only know it from photographs – which, of course, tend to be made at the most appealing times – you might not know that it is often hot and hazy and dry during the day. These are among the reasons that it is a place often photographed at dawn or at sunset on days when the clouds are interesting. (The latter poses its own set of problems, since the Sierra Nevada range begins to block the light well before actual sunset.)
But I did get lucky on this late July afternoon. It was thunderstorm weather, so there were some very impressive clouds floating around. However, the clouds did not completely fill the sky, so patches of light were moving across the landscape – in this photograph one illuminates the green area at far right along the shore and, more importantly, the Mono Craters beyond the far shore of the lake. And the vegetation around the lake was still green, or at least green enough to look alive in this light.
(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts when this page is viewed on the web. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
Manage Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
