Two Holiday Rituals

December 15, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

I have two holiday photographic rituals this time of year. I have begun one and will soon get to work on the other.

Today I began going through all of my raw files from 2010. I don’t even know how many thousands of files there must be, and it is perhaps better that I don’t know! Each time I do this year-end review I find a number of photographs with potential that I did not see right after I made them. Sometimes it simply takes a bit of distance in order to see what is there; other times I just moved on to another project before I was truly finished with the previous one. Don’t be surprised to see of these photographs posted here over the next few weeks.

Soon I’ll begin the second task, trying to pick my favorite photographs of 2010. I also enjoy this since the process lets me revisit and relive some of the experiences I had as I made the photographs. Given that I work from my “daily photograph” pool, it should be easier than reviewing the raw files – instead of thousands of files there are only a few hundred. However, it always turns out to be harder than I think it will be. I think there are perhaps two reasons. First, while most of the raw files are not really worth a second look, the photographs from which I select the “favorite of the year” images are all images that I like. This makes it very hard to narrow the selection down to perhaps ten or twelve photographs. Second, in some ways I am the least qualified to understand my photographs. That may sound odd, but no one else can see them in the same way that I do since I was there when they were made and thus know things about them that only I can know. Other viewers are perhaps better able to simply view them “as photographs.”

Regarding the second task, feel free to share your ideas and suggestions concerning the selection process or even to suggest specific photographs that might have connected with you.

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

Aspen Grove, Dunderberg Road

December 15, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A dense grove of thick and twisy aspens growing along Dunderberg Road in the eastern Sierra Nevada.

This just may be my final new aspen photograph from the 2010 season in the eastern Sierra. (Then again, I do go through all of my raw files during the final couple of weeks of the year, and who knows what might turn up!)

The photograph was made late in the day along the dirt track of Dunderberg Road in a grove of trees that I have visited in the past. Aspen trees can assume a seemingly infinite variety of forms, ranging from the groves of tall and slender trees growing in near perfect symmetry to stunted and twisted specimens that seem more like shrubs than trees. In this grove the trees seem to have endured some real stress – they have thick and strong trunks, but the trees are not tall and the trunks are gnarled and twisted in all sorts of crazy directions. Often when you see a trunk as thick as this one you would expect the tree to be quite tall… but not here.

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, Photographs: Yosemite

Fog-Shrouded Curving Ridges, Yosemite Valley

December 14, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Trees and rocks emerge from fog flowing over curving ridges on the rim of Yosemite Valley during an autumn storm.

This may be the final photograph from the “fog shrouded cliffs” series that came from my late October visit to Yosemite Valley during a fall storm. Since I’ve described this series in some detail previously, I’ll try to keep this comment short. I initially had my eye on the pinnacle at the lower left, and it became a more prominent subject in other photographs in this series. But as I photographed it I was attracted to the angles formed by the foreground ridge rising from left to right and the upper ridge beyond rising the opposite direction. (I think it is the same ridge, with the two sections joined directly above the pinnacle.) The fog/clouds were in constant motion, at one moment almost completely obscuring the scene and a moment later revealing portions of the landscape. For a brief instant the pinnacle stood clear of the clouds and bot sections of the upper ridge were visible.

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

Cove and Beach Near Davenport, Evening

December 13, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Black and white photograph of two people standing on a bluff above the Pacific Ocean and overlooking a cove and beach near Davenport California.

Although I have continued posting photographs at a rate of one per day, I have only managed to get into the field to shoot a few times since early November. Yesterday I found time to make it over to the Pacific coast late in the day. I was looking for the foggy, misty, and somewhat gray conditions that are common this time of year, at least when the air has not been cleared by a passing storm. I wasn’t disappointed. While the sky was clear overhead, the air was very moist – my equipment became damp from condensation as I worked.

Since my time was a bit limited – the sun was going down! – I went more or less straight to this spot where I have photographed in the past. (At first I considered going a bit further north to shoot from high bluffs, but I realized that the shot I had in mind from that location would be better earlier in the day.) When I arrived the sun was just dropping below the horizon, but that is what I wanted – I wasn’t looking for one of those brilliant “sun dead ahead” shots. I wanted the post-sunset soft light and enough darkness that I could work with longer exposures.

I parked and walked the short distance to this spot at the head of this cove. The composition is sort of tricky. The “right” (in my view) arrangement of the offshore rock and the surrounding bluffs can only be seen from a very small area – too far right or left and elements start to collide. In addition I wanted that little bit of more distant shoal along the right side of the frame to suggest that the coast continues, and I wanted that flat bit of bluff with a bit of post sunset light at the left. It was a bonus when the two people – probably photographers! – showed up on the top of the left bluff and thoughtfully posed for me as I made long exposures!

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.