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

Merry Christmas 2011!

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Yosemite Valley, New Snow, Morning - Classic winter view of snow-covered Yosemite Valley scene photographed from Wawona Tunnel View after a late-winter storm.
Yosemite Valley, New Snow, Morning - Classic winter view of snow-covered Yosemite Valley scene photographed from Wawona Tunnel View after a late-winter storm.

Yosemite Valley, New Snow, Morning. Yosemite National Park, California. March 4, 2006. © Copyright 2006. G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Merry Christmas 2011!

It has been a bit of a tradition to post a photograph of Yosemite Valley in snow on Christmas Day – it seems like the Sierra way to send seasons greetings! I hope that you and yours are having a wonderful holiday!

(The photograph was made on the morning after a late-winter snow storm in The Valley back in 2006.)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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

Winter Surf, Asilomar Beach, Twilight

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Winter Surf, Asilmar Beach, Twilight - Pacific Grove, California.
Winter Surf, Asilomar Beach, Twilight

Winter Surf, Asilomar Beach, Twilight. Pacific Grove, California. December 19, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Winter surf at twilight at Asilomar Beach, Pacific Grove, California.

I was in the Monterey Peninsula area for several days in mid-December for mostly non-photographic reasons, but I managed to get away and make some photographs on several occasions. On this evening I had just enough time to quickly head over to the Pacific Grove area at Asilomar Beach in the evening. I arrived a bit before sunset and quickly found a spot with several photographic possibilities.

I began by shooting along a the beach toward the setting sun, and including the figures of lots of people who were out strolling along this beach. I though that the silhouettes of the people were interesting, along with the colors of the late-day sky and their reflections on the water and the wet areas of the sand. After the sun dropped below the horizon I mostly stopped photographing people – my shutter speeds had to be too low to stop their motion – and I began to work with longer exposures that allowed the water to blur to a greater or lesser extent, while focusing more on the intense colors of the post-sunset period.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Forest, Morning Light

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Forest, Morning Light
Forest, Morning Light

Forest, Morning Light. Yosemite National Park, California. September 18, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light strikes a tree in a small grove of trees surrounded by Sierra Nevada granite boulders, Yosemite National Park.

This is really a very unremarkable scene in most ways. The foreground tree, with its top leaning over to the right, sits in a mixed forest/meadow area behind some rocks that look like the remains of an old glacial moraine. (This area was largely formed by glaciers, and their evidence is everywhere here.) Beyond the moraine and out of sight from this position is a good-size subalpine lake, and above that rocky, talus-covered slopes lead upwards to much higher alpine ridges and peaks.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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, Photographs: Wildlife

Three Harbor Seals

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Three Harbor Seals
Three Harbor Seals

Three Harbor Seals. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. April 26, 2009. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Three harbor seals resting on a rock at Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

This is a photograph from a couple years back, made on one of my frequent visits to Point Lobos. If I recall correctly, there were two reasons that I focuses on these creatures on this visit: there were lots of them, and the light was less than wonderful for landscape/seascape photography!

During certain times of the year, it isn’t hard at all to find these large seals near the shoreline at Point Lobos and in many other locations along the coast. At Point Lobos you can often see them swimming around the kelp beds, with their large heads occasionally poking up from the water. They also spend time on some the half-submerged rocks near the shoreline (as this group is doing) or even hauled out on some of the more secluded beaches and coves.

When I first started photographing them seriously I was surprised to find that they pay attention to humans – sometimes a lot of attention. Sometimes it seems that they are regarding me as carefully as I am watching them! Note that two of the seals are staring straight up at my position in this photograph. This habit gives them the appearance of being very attentive creatures and suggests, to me at least, a degree of intelligence and self-possession.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.