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At the Shoreline

At the Shoreline
A peninsula of fractured and worn rocks next to the tidal zone.

At the Shoreline. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A peninsula of fractured and worn rocks next to the tidal zone.

As I wrote in another recent post, what I thought would be a quick visit to this cove turned into a rather longer one. As I started my visit I wasn’t sure that I would photograph here, but once I started looking around I found plenty of interesting subjects. After well over an hour I finally tore myself away to go photograph something else!

The location encompasses a shallow cove lined with rocks, some of which are flat and gradually head under the water, and others that are part of a small peninsula blocking the area from the open ocean. The intertidal zone is full of fascinating things — living creatures, pebbles left behind by the surf, and a pavement of upended strata. In this photograph I backed off some distance and put a long lens on the camera so that I could include the foreground boulders along with a small portion of the flat area and the rocky wall of the peninsula beyond.


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

Photographer Charles Cramer

Photographer Charles Cramer
Photographer Charles Cramer at work in the John Muir Wilderness backcountry

Photographer Charles Cramer. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Photographer Charles Cramer at work in the John Muir Wilderness backcountry.

Photographer Charles (“Charlie”) Cramer at work in the High Sierra of the John Muir Wilderness Area. A group of us spent a week base-camped in a particularly scenic portion of this wilderness area, heading out each day to find and photograph the abundant and beautiful subjects present here – ranging from the intimate (wlldflowers) to the monumental (the peaks of the Sierra crest).

The pace and nature of the work in a place like this might surprise those who haven’t experienced it. Many years ago, when my orientation to the backcountry was via long pack trips on which I moved every day, I worried that I would become bored if I stayed in the same place for more than a night. After years of doing just that, I realize how completely wrong I was. We can easily find a week’s worth of things to investigate and photograph in such places, and at the end of each trip I invariably end up wishing I could stay longer!


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 | FacebookEmail

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.


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

Working the Red Rock Landscape

Working the Red Rock Landscape
Working the Red Rock Landscape

Working the Red Rock Landscape. Utah. October 23, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Photographers at work in Utah’s red rock country

A group of us assembled in the outback of southern Utah in October for a few days of landscape photography — and I was perhaps the odd man out as the person least familiar with Utah subjects. Not that I haven’t shot there before… I’ve actually spent perhaps a month and a half photographing in the state in the past few years, all told, and I’m becoming more and more familiar with the visual quality and the rhythms of the place. However, the others were mostly from the Southwest, and they have the same sorts of instincts for this land that I have for the Sierra.

We spent a few days in this red rock landscape of domes, hills, gulches, and canyons. On this evening we went to a location where red sandstone hills rise above the flatlands and stretch into the distance, and are filled with a seemingly infinite variety of textures and shapes and plant life. Here we stopped to photograph an old cottonwood snag in the middle of an expanse of sandstone.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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.

Pick the Right Friends… (Morning Musings 9/29/14)

G Dan Mitchell Photographing in the Sierra Nevada
G Dan Mitchell Photographing in the Sierra Nevada

If you are ever in the wilderness and you want someone to take a photograph of you, you could hand your smartphone to the nearest person and hope for the best. However, I have a few suggestions (slightly tongue-in-cheek) that might improve the odds:

  1. Arrange to be in the company of one of the best landscape photographers working today. (Yeah, that’s you, Charlie Cramer.)
  2. Make a photograph of him at work and hope that this inspires him to photograph you doing the same thing.
  3. Be sure to place yourself so that dramatic golden hour light hits you in partial profile.
  4. Be sure to position yourself against an appropriate background.
  5. Gaze attentively and thoughtfully into the distance. ;-)

Bonus hint: Be sure to level your tripod first, or your photographer friends may never let you live it down. ;-)

Here’s a photograph of Charlie at work, too

Photographer Charles Cramer
Photographer Charles Cramer

In all seriousness, when you are out shooting, do photograph your fellow photographers. Each of us needs photographs of ourselves, and a photograph by a friend (or of a friend) is a special thing.

Thanks, Charlie!

Morning Musings are somewhat irregular posts in which I write about whatever is on my mind at the moment.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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 | FacebookGoogle+ | 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.