Category Archives: Photographs: Central California

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

San Luis Reservoir, Autumn Haze

December 26, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Soft light and autumn atmosphere obscure the view across the San Luis Reservoir

Since I have previously described the circumstances of photographing this scene, I’ll keep this description short. The San Luis Reservoir is a huge manmade lake in central California, between the south San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Valley. I frequently pass by here as I travel to the Valley, the Sierra, and beyond.

On this day I had been out in the Valley photographing migratory birds and the landscapes in which they are found — my first such visit to the Valley this season. On the way back home I passed the reservoir in the middle of the day, when the bright, late-autumn sun was reflecting off the surface of the lake and making the clouds above the distance mountains glow.

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

Boat, San Luis Reservoir

December 21, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two fisherman in a very small boat on the very large surface of the San Luis Reservoir on a cloudy and hazy autumn day

Returning from my first Central Valley winter bird photography excursion of the new season, I passed by San Luis Reservoir in the middle of the day when soft clouds hung above the mountains across the water and the sun made the hazy atmosphere glow. I usually just drive right past this place — which isn’t easy to access, even though the road runs right next to it — but I decided to figure out how and where to stop and make some photographs.

I found a high overlook at the visitor center that stands at the north end of the huge earthen dam, and from here there was a panoramic view of the surface of the lake and the surrounding California hills, which are mostly golden at this point in the early winter season. (Before long, after the first real rains, they will turn “impossibly green.”) As I photographed landscape subjects I noticed one very small fishing boat on the otherwise-empty surface of the huge reservoir.

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

Forest, Ridge, and Haze

December 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning haze mutes the details of forested coastal ridges along the California coast

Yes, yet another of the December black and white photographs — inspired by all of the black and white “challenge” posting going on right now. This photograph comes from 2010 when I made one of my frequent visits to the Point Lobos area along the California coast south of Monterey, an area that I have visited for decades. The typical focus of those visits is the shoreline itself, which is very spectacular here and which produces a wide range of moods throughout the year.

The photograph was made at Point Lobos, but much of what you see is not actually in this state park. The foreground forest is, but the high coastal hills rising beyond are outside the park. As beautiful as the ocean is, there is a lot to see if you turn your eyes in the opposite direction, too! On this morning there was high, thin cloudiness along with a great deal of backlit atmospheric haze — perhaps my favorite conditions for photographing scenes like this one! The haze glows in the backlight, and it mutes the smaller “busy” features of the landscape, allowing the larger forms to be seen more clearly… and perhaps evoking a sense of mystery.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Low Water, San Luis Reservoir

November 25, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Low water at the San Luis Reservoir, Autumn

California is currently in the third of three years of historically bad drought conditions. Water is power in the state — and a lot of politics has gone on around the acquisition of water, the use (and misuse) of water, and the construction of water projects. I’ve lived in the state long enough to have been in the valley now filled by this huge reservoir before it was filled. I have a faint memory of traveling across the valley bottom in a car with my dad at the wheel, looking at things that he told me were soon to be submerged — I have a specific recall of a bit of roadway and a bridge. That valley is long gone now, having been filled by the late 1960s.

The reservoir is an unusual one. The water it holds is pumped up into the reservoir from below and stored from year to year, producing some electrical power when the water flows back down from the reservoir to the valley. Essentially, water goes both directions though the dam! At the end of this third drought year the water level is extremely low — as low as I recall seeing it — and some of the huge structures at the dam are well above the water line. This is partly a photograph of those structures, partly a record of a phase in California’s water crisis, and partly a juxtaposition of angles and surfaces and curves, all under beautiful hazy late-autumn California light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Central California

San Luis Reservoir, Autumn Haze

Boat, San Luis Reservoir

Forest, Ridge, and Haze

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