Tag Archives: america

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

Sea Stacks and Bluffs, Fog

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Sea Stacks and Bluffs, Fog
Thinning morning fog above sea stacks and bluffs along the Big Sur coast.

Sea Stacks and Bluffs, Fog. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Thinning morning fog above sea stacks and bluffs along the Big Sur coast.

Because I am fortunate to live close to some rather famous places I often find myself at certain photographic icons. Over time I have developed an odd relationship with such places — a sort of love/hate relationship. I recognize why they have become icons, and acknowledge that in many circumstances they are truly amazing places, locations that any visitor to these various parks and other locations will want to see. But over a long period of time two things changed in my thinking about them as a photographer. First, there are so many photographs of such locations that it is probably not a good use of my time to rephotograph them. (To new photographers, it certainly can be a good exercise to photograph them, if for no other reason that to think about how the great photographs of these places were made.) The second change is that, to a certain extent, they start to seem less special.

I have written before about, for example, how I most often drive past the famous tunnel view in Yosemite without even stopping. (I’ve also written about a memorable occasion when witnessing someone else’s reaction to seeing this view for the first time reminded me of what an astonishing thing it is.) Because I have visited the Big Sur coast for decades, I’m less and less inclined to stop for icons… and I’m more likely to stop at random, odd turn-outs just to see what new thing I might find. But this week as I drove past this spot and looked to my right the combination of blue water, drifting fog, and thin light on the foreground rocks persuaded me to quickly pull over and photograph this… icon.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Coastal Pinnacles, Fog

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Coastal Pinnacles, Fog
Rocky pinnacles rise above the rugged Big Sur coastline.

Coastal Pinnacles, Fog. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Rocky pinnacles rise above the rugged Big Sur coastline.

On some days photography is easy. It seems that subjects are everywhere, and all of them are obvious, compelling, and beautiful. But most days aren’t like that. This week’s day trip to the Big Sur coast was great but it had its challenges. Ironically, the major challenge came from the trigger for this visit: fog. California summers can be “too beautiful,” if your idea of beauty is perfect warm blue sky days. (Though such days are increasingly affected by wildfire smoke, but I digress…) I prefer more interesting conditions, and coastal fog fills the bill. But it presents some challenges, often related to fickle local conditions. The ideal is to have just the right amount of fog, which means enough to be interesting but not so much as to kill all directional light. (A tourist stopped while I was making this photograph and, obviously distressed by the near invisibly of the nearby ocean, asked “is it always like this?)

On the plus side, there is virtually always something to see no matter where you stop along the Big Sur coast, and I “discover” some new features on every visit. For no particular reason I stopped above a small bay filled with fog, and when I walked to the edge I spotted this dramatic feature below near the edge of the surf — a peninsula with pinnacles running out toward a small island nearly obscured by the fog. I set up and made a few exposures, then settled in to way for a bit more clearing. The for was right up against the coast, and there was occasional sunlight only feet behind me, so I figured that the fog would continue to dissipate. I was wrong. Even though it was midday, when the sun usually wins out over the fog, the view became more obscure and this photograph, on of the first I made, turned out to be the keeper.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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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.

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

Point Sur, December Sky

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Point Sur, December Sky
High clouds, brilliant reflecting light on the water, and fog at Point Sur.

Point Sur, December Sky. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

High clouds, brilliant reflecting light on the water, and fog at Point Sur.

There is a lot of “accepted wisdom” about photography that turns out to be not quite true when you stop and consider your actual picture-making experience..Yesterday I was having a conversation with a photographer friend (Hi, Charlie!) about various things, including the way that some photographs don’t quite make sense to us until we return to them long after making the original exposure. If one ideal is to pre-visualize the photograph perfectly (and I do believe in the value of pre-visualizing), then it would seem that being surprised months or years later to find that a forgotten image works is hard to explain. But it happens — quite a lot, actually. One of my ideas about this is that at first we are too invested in what we believe the photograph to be that we are unable to look beyond that and see what it actually is.

All of this is a long way of getting to a point about this photograph. When I first viewed it right after the day I visited the Big Sur coast, I had a hard time with certain aspects of the light and the color and, to a lesser extent, the way it was framed. Originally I settled on a black and white interpretation. (Yes, a neat way of copping out about the color issues!) Recently I went back and looked at it again, and this is the result. I ended up with a slightly different crop, some work to lighten portions of the scene, and some new thinking about color of clouds and sky and about how to handle the bright yet low contrast reflections on the water out near the horizon.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Eastern Sierra Lake, Evening

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Eastern Sierra Lake, Evening
Early evening light on a high country Sierra Nevada lake in the Hoover Wilderness.

Eastern Sierra Lake, Evening. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early evening light on a high country Sierra Nevada lake in the Hoover Wilderness.

A few weeks ago I decided to head to the eastern Sierra for a few days to get up into the high country. The main idea was to do a sort of pre-flight check for some potential backpacking, but I was also interested in photography, of course. I ended up camping at the end of an east side road that departs US 395 north of Yosemite. Despite the number of wildfires in California, I was lucky and the winds blew the right way to give me mostly clear skies. On this afternoon I decided to just hike up into the drainage above the road end to see what I would find.

Because I was looking for late-day light I didn’t start up the trail until mid-afternoon — my plan was to arrive at the high point when the light was getting good, make photographs, and then return by nightfall. After many years of hiking such terrain, this route felt familiar even though it was my first time on this trail. I passed a lake, following a trail through trees along its shoreline, and then climbed again, crossing a rocky ridge before another lake came into view. Eventually I came to my favorite sort of Sierra landscape — flat, meadowy areas with glaciated granite and small trees, with water flowing and peaks above. I stopped hiking and just sat for a while, enjoying the solitude and quiet… and noting that it was starting to get a bit cold. Eventually I made a few photographs and started back down the way I came, pausing to photograph a small peninsula at this lake as the angle of the light lowered.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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.