Category Archives: Photographs: Central California

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Sailing Stone

Image August 19, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The sailing stones of the San Joaquin

Many are familiar with the “sailing stones” or “gliding stones” found on a well-know, remote playa at Death Valley National Park. Getting to that location takes a bit of effort — a 55 mile round trip on an awful road, and typically one wants to be there at sunrise and/or sunset. I’ve been there quite a few times – though I no longer go. Why not? A combination of being interested in the many other compelling locations in that park and the fact that too many visitors to the place have caused some damage that mars the landscape and the experience.

But I think I’ve found an alternative! This location — which I won’t name, given the obvious aesthetic appeal of this, uh, “landscape” — seems to also feature at least one sailing stone. And an out house. I’m not sure how to explain the appearance of the phenomenon at this location, but perhaps someone can investigate as the focus of their graduate project…

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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Toward Morning Light

Image August 18, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of sandhill cranes flies toward the morning light

This group of sandhill cranes was flying almost into the early morning sun — it was actually just enough to one side to illuminate the side of the birds that was facing me. As the cranes came toward my position I was ready, and I tracked them as they crossed from left to right, repositioning themselves as they passed by.

Sandhill cranes hold a special place for me, and they did even before I had seen or heard them. Many years ago as college student, an enlightened science professor assigned us to read sections of Aldo Leopold’s “Sand County Almanac.” Leopold was completely new to me at the time — my vocabulary of “nature” writers was more orientated to the Sierra Nevada. But his descriptions of the cranes and the experience of seeing them stuck with me, and perhaps made the experience more magical when I finally saw them many years later.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Big Sur Coast Headlands

Image August 16, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Thinning fog over the Big Sur coast beyond rugged headlands

This was a particularly “quiet” section of the coast on the day I visited. Elsewhere the wind was blowing, sometimes pushing fog across the roadway, and often making photography a bit of a challenge. But here there was shelter from the wind, and the ocean was relatively calm. A fog bank lay across the water in the distance, though it was nearly gone as the day warmed up.

There are impressive headlands all along this section of the Pacific Coast Highway through the Big Sur coast, but this area just south of the town of Big Sur has some of the tallest and steepest sections. I often take this landscape for granted, as I have lived nearby for almost my entire life — and then, every so often, it hits me that it must be one of the most monumental meetings of land and sea on the planet, both for the rugged landscape itself and for the distance across which it stretches.

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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Water Plants

Image August 14, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Water plants growing in a wetland pond

Reflecting water is endlessly fascinating, and it is hard to resist and opportunity to photograph it, especially when it serves to abstract the forms of other subjects. No two such photographs are ever quite alike, as the water is always in motion and the patterns of reflected light, clouds, and sky are constantly shifting.

These water plants, which you might think of as being almost objectively ugly in some conditions, become transformed by the reflections and by being positioned against the nearly featureless background of the water’s surface. Photographing this subject is, as I’ve observed among my photographer friends, both unavoidable and often a bit more difficult that you think it will be. These nearly random forms are appealing, but when you look at them closely it is easy to find compositional problems — overlaps, awkward shapes, unbalanced arrangements.

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G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Central California

Sailing Stone

Toward Morning Light

Big Sur Coast Headlands

Water Plants

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