Tag Archives: atmosphere

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

The Valley, Morning Sun And Clouds

May 12, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Clouds from a passing weather front break up over Yosemite Valley as sun rises above Sentinel Dome

I confess that I’m often tempted to title photographs of this subject, “Yet Another Clearing Storm.” The subject is, to say the least, done a lot! The location is accessible, the view is tremendous (even if you’ve seen it a hundred times), storms clear in dramatic fashion. Sometimes I just have to stop and photograph it. Again. This does, however, bring to mind the famous comment that one photographer offered when asked by a neophyte if he had any advice about photographing from Tunnel View: “Don’t,” he replied. Yet we do. It can be a sort of guilty pleasure, and on a number of beautiful winter evenings I’ve run into friends there.

The light on this morning was something of a surprise — given what I had seen in the first predawn light I expected gray overcast. But as I came down toward the Valley I began to see hopeful signs — a bit of a glow from the east that suggested breaks beyond the edge of the cloud shield. I arrived here just before the clouds began to open up. I almost didn’t photograph — I first walked over without my equipment thinking it might be a quick stop before moving on. But it soon began to look more and more like the light might become even more interesting, so I raced back to my car and grabbed my camera, lenses, and tripod. Soon the morning sun rose over Sentinel Dome, intermittently breaking through the clouds and sending beams of soft light across and into the Valley.

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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, Photographs: Yosemite

Morning Light, Haze, El Capitan

May 3, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Beams of early morning sunlight pass through haze to illuminate El Capitan

I’m coming to think of the start of this particular day in lower Yosemite Valley as being “Bierstadt Day.” Albert Bierstadt was a landscape painter who made several notable renderings of Yosemite subjects in the 1800s, paintings that perhaps formed the image for the park for many who saw them. They are not “realistic” in a photographic sense, but tend toward exaggerating features and using dramatic effects of perspective, atmosphere, and light. When I see Bierstadt paintings I often think both of how they evoked the wonder of seeing remarkable places like Yosemite Valley and of how flexibly and subjectively he treated these subjects. I also think about how little they look like the literal place, as least in objective sense.

However, at certain moments, the quality of light and atmosphere came close on this morning. The morning began inauspiciously, and in the pre-dawn light I could tell that it was cloudy and gray. However, as I approached the Valley from Wawona there were breaks in the clouds. Arriving at my first clear viewpoint, the iconic tunnel view (where I usually wouldn’t stop on my way into the Valley), the view included the usual Valley features, layers of drifting clouds and mist, and beams of colorful light playing across this landscape. I put a long lens on my camera and began to follow the changing conditions, picking out small sections of the grand view that seemed most interesting. At the moment of this photograph (and, indeed, the light lasted only a moment) sun beams broke through the clouds and moved in front of the face of El Capitan.

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

Pacific Coastline, Winter Haze

February 21, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Gentle winter haze along California’s Pacific Ocean coastline south of Monterey

I have visited this coast for decades, since my parents moved to California from the Midwest when I was four-years-old. Back then we took lots of family “day trips,” and the Monterey Peninsula and Point Lobos areas were often our goals, and I became familiar with the Coast Highway Pacific Ocean interface at a young age. There was perhaps a gap when I was in college, but when our kids were old enough we headed down this way from time to time, too.

There are a few constants here: the headland cliffs plunging into the Pacific, the twisting and turning route of the highway, the little places to stop and grab a bite to eat, the long views over the ocean and up and down the coast. But other things are rarely the same twice. The light is constantly changing, from morning to evening, from winter to summer, from clear air to fog. I would most typically photograph early or late, but on this winter day there was interesting light and atmosphere right into the middle of the day when I made this photograph, looking south along the coastline as the haze gradually obscured distant hills and the sunlight’s reflection turned the oceans distant surface a brilliant white.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Winter Fields

February 4, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of sandhill cranes flies through an evening winter sky about the San Joaquin River

During winter I travel to California’s Central Valley somewhat frequently, ostensibly to photograph birds but, to be honest, also to photograph the landscape — one that often features fog, fields and trees on the trajectory between winter and spring, unusual effects of light, and those birds. In mid-January I was there one afternoon, on my way to an opening reception at the Carnegie Arts Center in Turlock. The drive would usually take me about two hours, but I left early to create some time to explore areas along the San Joaquin River as it approaches the delta and eventually San Francisco Bay.

It was an interesting weather day. It was range when I left the San Francisco Bay Area, but I got ahead of the front as I crossed into the valley, and it was partly sunny as I headed east on country roads towards this destination. Out here by the river it was hazy and foggy, as it so often is this time of year, and before long the clouds of that front caught up with me and produced an interesting and evocative “atmospheric soup” that was occasionally illuminated subtly when the clouds above the fog to the west thinned. The photograph looks across fallow and muddy fields where sandhill cranes were collecting and towards the scattered trees that grow nearer to the river, above which a flock of cranes flies past.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: atmosphere

The Valley, Morning Sun And Clouds

Morning Light, Haze, El Capitan

Pacific Coastline, Winter Haze

Winter Fields

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