Category Archives: Photographs: Central California

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: San Francisco

San Francisco at Night: Bay Bridge, The Embarcadero, and Transamerica Pyramid

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San Francisco at Night: Bay Bridge, The Embarcadero, and Transamerica Pyramid

San Francisco at Night: Bay Bridge, The Embarcadero, and Transamerica Pyramid. San Francisco, California. December 21, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.

On this cold December evening I detoured to Treasure Island on my way home from Muir Woods to photograph the holiday lights of the San Francisco skyline across the waters of the San Francisco Bay. (Although not apparent in the small image displayed here, the original is stitched from a series of 12 megapixel files, producing a highly detailed image that can be enlarged significantly.)

(keywords: san francisco, night, bay bridge, the, embarcadero, transamerica, pyramid, building, lights, urban, city, skyline, bay, reflections, downtown, skyscrapers, treasure island, california, usa, travel, stock)

Photographs: Central California

Two Birds, Corralitos Pond

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Two Birds, Corralitos Pond
Two Birds, Corralitos Pond. Calero Hills, California. January 20, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell

One of several photographs I made on a very foggy early morning last year at this pond in the oak/grassland where I frequently hike.

(keywords: two, birds, corralitos, pond, calero, hills, santa clara county, park, california, usa, brush, bushes, lake, water, reflection, flying, fog, mist, morning, black and white, nature, hiking, outdoors, winter, landscape, stock)

Photographs: Central California

Spring Evening, California Central Valley

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Spring Evening, Central Valley
Spring Evening, Central Valley. Near Jackson, California. April 4, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.

Believe it or not, this photograph is connected to the Death Valley photos I have been posting recently. Last April I returned from Death Valley by driving up the east side of the Sierra before crossing the crest at Carson Pass to descend to the Central Valley. This photograph was taken as I stopped in the newly green hills west of Jackson and looked back toward the Sierra in the Lake Tahoe region.

(keywords: evening, field, pasture, lake, pond, grass, meadow, trees, mountains, hills, clouds, mountains, snow, covered, capped, sierra, nevada, foothills, california, usa, travel, scenic, landscape, stock)

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

Cliffs, Surf, and Fog – California Coastline

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Cliffs, Surf, and Fog – California Coastline. South of San Francisco, California. January 12, 2008. © Copyright 2008 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Fog and winter light on cliffs and Pacific coast surf in winter. South of San Francisco, California

I have always been fascinated by light shining directly through the atmosphere, coming straight on towards me – the brighter and more luminous the glow the better. You frequently find me aiming my camera almost straight toward the sun. (I’ve become a master at shading lenses with hands, hat, pieces of paper, you name it.) I also love atmospheric recession, the illumination of distance by the haze, as more distant subjects lose contrast and detail. This scene had all of those things, and perhaps even more.

I had been driving the coast highway (highway 1) between Santa Cruz and San Francisco on this winter day, and in places it was very foggy – but here it was the kind of fog that, while dense near the ground, is shallow enough that the light from the sun shines though and can even make looking at the clouds almost unbearable. I pulled over at a place where it looked like I might be able to walk out onto a shoreline bluff high above the water and see over the edge to the water and cliffs below and beyond. A saw this line-up of receding cliffs dropping to the surf and decided to shoot along them towards the sun. (I was surprised to find later that hidden in the fog is a small creek dropping from one section of the cliff in a small water fall.)

From the original post: “This high key image is a bit different from what I usually do. The fog was backlit by some fairly bright sunlight and, although it is nearly impossible to see in this little jpg image, there is a lot of detail in the frothy white surface of the water on the right side.”

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.