Category Archives: Photographs: Nature

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Cloud Shadows and Fog

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Cloud Shadows and Fog
Cloud shadows on the surface of the Pacific Ocean off of Point Reyes National Seashore.

Cloud Shadows and Fog. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A cloud shadow on the surface of the Pacific Ocean off of Point Reyes National Seashore.

This is a rather subtle landscape or seascape photograph, perhaps to the point of minimalism. I made it on a foggy afternoon along the interior of Drakes Bay at the Point Reyes National Seashore. The fog had thinned a bit by this time, but it was obstinate enough that it had not lifted even in the afternoon. Some light was coming though the cloud deck but it was extremely diffused — though it had enough directionality and the fog enough luminosity to lay a subtle shadow across the water below a thicker line of clouds.

Days like this one are slow, quiet, and mysterious along the Pacific Coast. The scale of the landscape diminishes to some extend and the “clear to the horizon” views are gone, as is the dome of the sky. From high locations such as the one from which I made the photograph, even the sound of the surf is muted.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Three Aspens, Granite

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Three Aspens, Granite
Three autumn aspen trees standing against a granite wall, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Three Aspens, Granite. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Three autumn aspen trees standing against a granite wall, Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Those of us who have spent a lot of time in the Sierra — and the story is similar for other locations — gradually accumulate “personal spots” that might not make much of an impression on others but which we greet like old friends each year. Mine include a particular rock outcropping in Tuolumne Meadows, a particular flat rock in the Yosemite backcountry where I’ve frequently placed my cook stove, a small grove of trees nestled in a bend along an Eastern Sierra road, a high and barren lake in the Southern Sierra, and quite a few more. I’ll bet you have a few such places of your own.

This little group of three slender aspen trees set against a jumble of rocks s is one of those spots. It is very accessible, but there’s an excellent chance that if you were nearby you passed without noticing. Yet virtually every autumn I end up stopping and photographing them again. (Yes, there are other photographs of them in my collection.) They are “the same,” yet they are also different every time I visit — the leaves may be green, yellow, a combination, or gone. The light may be intense in the morning or soft and blue in late-day shadows. So I return, and I photograph them again, and I mark another season with each return.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Reflections

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Aspen Reflections
Autumn aspen trees reflected in an eastrern Sierra Nevada pond.

Aspen Reflections. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Autumn aspen trees reflected in an eastrern Sierra Nevada pond.

Each year at about this time I ask, “Is it ever too early to start thinking about fall color?” The answer, of course, is no. Autumn is my favorite season for all kinds of reasons — the colors, of course, but also the return of cooler temperatures and “interesting” weather and shorter daylight hours. The period between Labor Day and the arrival of late-autumn snow is my favorite time in the Sierra. There’s nothing as beautiful as a late-September or early-October day in the high country.

As a person who has photographed Eastern Sierra aspens a lot — and who has written a book on the subject — the way I see this subject has evolved over the years. While I’m still impressed by a hillside completely full of colorful trees, I am constantly looking for other ways to photograph this subject. Here I aimed the camera down toward the surface of an Eastern Sierra pond, framing to exclude anything but the brilliant colors of a grove on the other side of the water.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Edge of the Light

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Edge of the Light
Light at the edge of a Pacific Coast fog bank on a summer evening.

Edge of the Light. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Light at the edge of a Pacific Coast fog bank on a summer evening.

By this point I am quite familiar with this coastline below California’s Monterey Peninsula — I’ve been visiting almost continuously since I was a child and my parents took the family down there for day trips and rare overnights in Monterey. We went to Point Lobos all the time, where I spent days investigating tide pools and hiking trails along the shoreline.

All of this may partially be my way of explaining why I might make a photograph like this —not a typical “tourist shot” of the rugged Big Sur coast, but something much quieter. The fog is a near-constant presence here, often coming onshore and muting colors and light and condensing the visual world. When it isn’t over the land it is often just off shore — perhaps far enough out that you have to look for it or, as here, right along the shoreline. The edge of the fog bank can be a place of amazing light — dark in distance beneath the clouds and surprisingly bright along the edges and where beams of light reflect off the water.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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