Island, Peninsula, Reflected Clouds

June 23, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

I have a long relationship with Lake Tahoe… but very few photographs of the place. When I first began cross-country skiing many years ago — before much of anyone knew about the sport on the west coast — I most often went to Tahoe, skiing the many accessible areas of relatively easy terrain. Later, as the sport developed and dedicated cross-country ski areas began to appear, some of my favorites were in this area. This past weekend, when we had occasion to visit the lake again, it suddenly hit me that I had barely been there at all in the past decade, and that I have almost no photographs of the place.

As I usually do, on one of my mornings at the lake this past weekend, I got up at 5:00 AM and was out the door as the sky was beginning to become light but well before sunrise. As I drove south down the west side of the lake there was a cloud bank above the mountains to the east side of the lake, and initially the light was not spectacular. Eventually, not far from Emerald Bay, beams of light began to penetrate the clouds and the alternating areas of light and shadow moved across the landscape of the west shore. I stopped at a spot that would likely not seem special to most passing by, and made some photographs of the forest as this light back-lit the trees. I drove on, stopping briefly at the Emerald Bay overlook to see the view but not really thinking about photographing here. I continued south and explored a few side areas, filing away a few locations for later shooting, and then turned back to the north, with the plan of getting back to our lodging to join the late-sleepers for breakfast. As I descended toward the inner curve of Emerald Bay I saw the deep blue water, the far edge of the lake in haze, and clouds reflected in the surface of the Bay next to Fannette Island.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Desert Dawn, Storm Clouds

June 22, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 6 Comments

Layers of dawn clouds from an arriving storm above receding mountains and valleys, Death Valley

This photograph comes from just about two months ago, during a photography visit to Death Valley National Park. It has been a very strange weather year in California, and the strangeness continued on this trip. In early April, almost anything can happen with Death Valley weather… and much of that “anything” occurred while we were there. On this day, the main attractions was… snow!

The night before I had decided that it looked like there might be the potential for interesting light up high in the mountains to the west of the Valley. My hope was that the clouds of an incoming weather front my just be making their appearance over the mountains, but leaving the sky to the east mostly clear or perhaps with some interesting clouds around dawn. We were up well before first light and on the road. As it began to be light we could see that there were a lot of clouds coming in, and when we arrived at our intended shooting location the clouds were closing in quickly. I guessed that there might, just maybe, be a brief window of light as the sun rose above mountains on the far side of the valley and, for an instant, might shine light horizontally above the mountains and below the clouds. It didn’t quite happen. (And you can’t always count on the good light. You have to be out there in some light failures if you hope to be there enough to get the miraculous successes, too.) The best we got was a brief and fiery illumination of the undersides of these clouds, above darker lower clouds and the shadowed peaks of the Amargosa Range.

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.

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

Rocky Shoreline, Pacific Ocean

June 21, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sandstone shoreline rocks along the Pacific Ocean coast at Point Lobos State Reserve

I’ve been sitting on this photograph for some time, perhaps because it isn’t exactly a spectacular scene but more of a familiar and subtle one with personal connections. During a busy period earlier this spring I had not been able to find time to photograph my favorite subjects for a few weeks and I was itching to get out… so I simply headed out one morning to this familiar location.

I’ve been going to Point Lobos for decades, since I was a very young child and my family would make day trips down there. In those days we would explore rocks just like these —in fact, they may have been these very rocks — and investigate nearby tide pools. On this spring morning there were few other visitors, perhaps because of the high cloudiness that was making the day almost a bit gray and softening in the light.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Poles and Shaded Wall

June 20, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A curving arrangement of metal poles leads to the shaded front of an industrial building at a Port of San Francisco pier

I’m always fascinated by the juxtapositions of things – sometimes the ways that the forms of the natural world come together, but also the little surprises in the human world where things that might not have been thought of as being connected turn out to be. I also love seeing and understand how the camera sees differently that we do with our eyes.

This is just a section of warehouse loading docks along a commercial pier on the San Francisco waterfront. While walking along the shoreline I happened to see a road and pathway leading out onto the pier so I ambled that direction. The way was lined on both sides by the long buildings. On one side they were slightly in sunlight, and the angle of the light created an interested relief on the windows and doors and other textures. In this direction the walls were still in shadow, and the objectively somewhat white walls were subjective very blue—or perhaps I have that backwards!. Until you have seen what the camera sees in this kind of light you don’t realize just how blue the shadows are, but here I decided to “embrace the blue” and let that colored shadow light be what it is. The curving arrangement of metal posts struck me as surprising. In a location where most things are arranged in very linear patterns, this curve seemed to stand out, and I enjoyed the pattern of their shadows on the asphalt.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Island, Peninsula, Reflected Clouds

Desert Dawn, Storm Clouds

Rocky Shoreline, Pacific Ocean

Poles and Shaded Wall

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