Category Archives: Photographs: Northern California

Photographs from Northern California

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

Kelp and Rock, Weston Cove

October 26, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dried kelp on rocks near the surf line at Weston Cove, Point Lobos.

On this late-October Saturday I traveled to the Monterey Peninsula for the opening of Charlie Cramer’s ‘Earth, Water, Light’ show and lecture at the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel. (You should go if you are in the area! The show runs from now through the end of the year and perhaps a week or so beyond.) With a winter-season Pacific storm coming in I wasn’t certain of what to expect from the weather, but ended up shooting in some wonderful light at Point Lobos.

There are many subjects to shoot there, and the light is one of the main factors (along with the season, the time of day, and random inclinations…) determining the subjects I’ll focus on. With the edge of the high clouds from the approaching storm diffusing the light it seemed like a good opportunity to shoot the rocks and kelp and other subjects along the shore line. When I shoot these subjects, especially in and around Point Lobos, I often have to slow down and just wander and look before I can really see the possibilities. A quick glance more or less gets me no farther than, “Look! Kelp! And rocks!” But if I wander around slowly and look carefully I’ll usually find some things of special interest among the piles of stones and kelp and other stuff that washes up. I often seen the thick tubular kelp forms like the one at the bottom of this frame, but seeing it with the more delicate material still attached – much less spread out this way on the rocks – is unusual, so I spent some time working with this subject.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Mount Morgan and Slopes of McGee Mountain, Morning

October 18, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Morning light on the lower slopes of McGee Mountain, the McGee Creek Canyon area and snow-capped Mount Morgan, with Owens Valley sagebrush and hills in the foreground.

I began my early morning shoot in Owens Valley near a small lake further to the east where I wanted to photograph dawn light. I had a plan to shoot a few other subjects in the valley and back toward the Sierra crest as the sun rose and the light changed, and part of this plan included driving along a gravel road I know to a spot where I had photographed before to try to combine the high desert sagebrush and rolling hills with some of the tall and rugged, snow-topped peaks along the escarpment of the eastern Sierra. I found a spot in the general area of where I wanted to photograph and then wandered off down a small dirt track to find a location that would put the foreground shadow across the lower part of the frame.

The area of the Sierra in this photograph includes the sunlit lower slopes of McGee Mountain on the right, McGee Creek Canyon beyond that, and ridges leading to the snow-capped summit of Mount Morgan. I’m not certain whether they are visible in this photograph, but beyond that lies Pioneer Basin (on the other side of the crest) and a group of four peaks named for the “Railroad Barons” of the 1800s: Crocker, Stanford, Huntington, and Hopkins.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: owens, valley, sage, sagebrush, hills, high, desert, mount, morgan, snow, capped, peak, ridg

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Conway Summit Aspens, Autumn

October 14, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Layers of colorful autumn aspen groves lead up toward Dunderberg Meadow and Peak above Conway Summit, California.

I often plan my visits to this large aspen grove on the high point of highway 395 just north of Lee Vining for late afternoon, when the rows upon rows of large aspen groves are back-lit by the afternoon sun as it drops towards the crest of the Sierra Nevada near Dunderberg peak. Each grove tends to change color at a slightly different time, and each can take on a different shade ranging from green (in the case of those that change a bit later) to golden and red and orange. This year, in this area, the colors seem to tend more towards gold/yellow and less towards red/orange, but no matte what the shade they light up in this light.

I was extra lucky on this afternoon in that there were clouds. Talk to many Sierra photographers about the weather and you’ll discover that we are not so fond of the “perfect blue sky weather” that so many others love. Yes, it is “pleasant.” No, it is not necessarily visually interesting. It had been that sort of “perfect” weather for the first couple days of this visit to the “east side,” but in the middle of the afternoon on this day puffy clouds began to form over the crest, and their shadows added texture and brought out the shapes of hills and ridges beyond the aspens.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Golden Aspen Grove, Conway Summit

October 13, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Groves of tightly spaced slender aspen trees with golden fall leaves at Conway Summit, California.

Conway Summit is a location well-known to many eastern Sierra photographers, especially those who photograph the autumn aspen color displays. The “Summit” is the high point on the highway 395 just north of the town of Lee Vining, and the aspens grow to the west on the slopes that gradually rise toward Dunderberg Meadow and Peak. When I’m looking for brilliant autumn color here, several factors come into play. First, you have to be there at the right time. This isn’t always easy to predict, and when the color is great in one area of these trees it may have passed or not yet arrived in others. Second, you need to come at the “right” time of day. For me this means, at least at Conway, coming in the mid- to late-afternoon when the groves are lit by backlight coming across the Sierra crest. Third, it helps a lot if you can be there for conditions that are not too ordinary. For example, on the afternoon when I made this and some others photographs that may follow, after a weekend of boring perfect cloud-free weather some puffy clouds began to form above the Sierra crest, and their shadows raced across the area and created patterns of light and dark.

This photograph is also an example of long lens landscape photography. For some reason there are those who think that landscape photography must be done with certain lenses, often those of “normal” to wide focal length ranges. Those certainly have their place, and I use them too. However, I find that longer focal lengths are also indispensable – not just for filling the frame with subjects that you otherwise might not be able to approach, but also to compress foreground and background and to narrow the depth of field, among other reasons. Here I photographed with a 100-400mm telephoto at 250mm.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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