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

Coastal Bluffs, Morning Fog

Image November 12, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Under foggy morning skies, steep coastal bluffs rise above the Pacific Ocean along the Big Sur coast

I’m fortunate to live in a (photographically speaking) “target rich environment.” Two hours to my west is the Great Central Valley of California, a couple of hours beyond that and I’m high in the Sierra Nevada, and a bit more driving takes me to the east side of the Sierra and the beginning of basin and range country. I can get to Death Valley in a day’s driving. San Francisco is a train ride away, and a bit north of that begins the heart of coast redwood country. (I can actually get to redwoods by driving only about a half hour from home.) Less than an hour away is the Pacific Ocean, and a somewhat longer drive takes my past Monterey and Carmel and into the remarkable Big Sur coastline.

That’s where I went on this day, getting a somewhat later start than I hoped for but arriving in time to find fog still hanging around among the coastal mountains and bluffs. I know this coastline well enough to photograph in some little-known spots, but this location is very close to something quite iconic. I’ve photographed this location many times, in all sorts of conditions — fog, brilliant sun, winter storms. It can be a very colorful and bright place late on a clear-sky day, but on this morning it had a quieter and more closed-in feeling.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Shoreline, Glacial Moraine

Image November 11, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An old glacial moraine reflected the water of an alpine lake in blue hour light

Over the years — decades, actually — I have learned to recognize more patterns in the backcountry landscape. (Which is not to say that I recognize or understand everything — there is still more to learn!) In places where I used to, and still do, respond with, “beautiful scene!,” I now ask additional questions: What makes it beautiful? Why does it look this way? How are these features connected? What processes are at work here? How is this changing? I have always known that glaciation played a big role in the formation of the Sierra Nevada. It is hard to miss this when crossing glacial polish on a granite slab or when tracing the shapes of Yosemite Valley. But it took longer to become aware of subtler effects.

For many years I hiked a particular route out to the Sierra crest that begins not far from Tioga Pass. There is considerable up and down in the first section of the hike — notable enough that I remember three specific such locations. It wasn’t until I had crossed them quite a few times that I realized that they were the remnants of very old lateral/media moraines. That doesn’t make them any easier to cross, but it does “excuse” them! This photograph includes another of these patterns, in this case a mound of gigantic boulders and smaller talus that was clearly pushed up by a small but long gone glacier that stopped just short of the shoreline of this lake. I made the photograph in blue hour light, in the shadows of the ridge above the talus field, and that light and the nearly smooth water evoke for me the stillness and deep quiet of such places.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: France, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Pigeons on the Roof

Image November 10, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pigeons on the roof of the Brancusi Gallery at Le Centre Pompidou, Paris

We were here somewhat early in the morning to visit the nearby Centre Pompidou. We may have arrived before it opened — or perhaps we weren’t aware that it had opened, or possibly we just wanted to look a bit before entering. In any case, we were walking around the large open space in front of the entrance, and I took the time to make a few photographs of the surroundings.

Off to the side, along a parallel street, is the Brancusi Gallery — the building whose roof is seen in the photograph. I think that the flock of pigeons first caught my attention. I thought it was odd that they were all clusters on the roof of this structure. Then I began to find the composition of lines and shapes and color interesting, with the slight foreground diagonal creating some dissonance with the squared shape of the gallery and with the older buildings in the background.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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

Quiet Lake, Autumn Reflections

Image November 9, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn aspen trees reflected in the quiet surface of an Eastern Sierra Nevada lake

Although this photograph does not show the “classic” view of this location, there may be enough here to make it look familiar. (If you know… shhhhh.) I stopped here at an “off-hour” that wasn’t the time of day when most people looking for to reproduce that classic photograph show up. That wasn’t my intention, and I now typically only go to this place (and others like it) when I suspect that something truly unusual might happen for the most part.

I arrived and wandered over to the often-crowded spot… to find that I was almost alone here. What an unusual pleasure! The water was extremely still for this time of day, and cloud-filtered light was coming from behind and to the left of the bright grove of aspen trees. They reflected beautifully in the lake, but I decided to interrupt that reflection and its symmetry by finding a way to include the grasses growing along the near shore of the lake, grasses that were themselves starting to take on the colors of autumn.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Coastal Bluffs, Morning Fog

Shoreline, Glacial Moraine

Pigeons on the Roof

Quiet Lake, Autumn Reflections

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