Tag Archives: atmosphere

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Canyon Light, Big Sur

April 23, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

A solitary tree stands on a hillside at the base of a rugged canyon filled with morning light and haze

I have driven past this canyon many times, even stopping to hike up into it on more than one occasion. I’m usually there in the morning, when the early sun is just clearing the top of the high ridge beyond the canyon, and backlight streams down into the canyon, sometimes so bright that it is almost impossible to look up into it.

This was one of those mornings. As I got to the Monterey Peninsula I was initially surprised by the amount of haze in the air, since it was supposed to be – and actually was! – a very windy day. This was good news, though, since I love atmosphere that is not crystal clear. A few fog clouds were trying to form over some of the higher hills, but mostly the air was just filled with this semi-opaque, luminous haze that gave form to the light passing through it. As I arrived at this spot I looked to my left out of habit and first thought that it might be too hazy to produce a photograph that showed the faint details that I was interested in. But since I was there and this was a lot more interesting than the view out over the ocean, I stopped and took a look, soon finding a composition that placed the solitary tree silhouette near the bottom of the frame and anchored the scene, the rest of which was very atmospheric and subtle.

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

Bixby Bridge, Pacific Coast Highway

April 21, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Pacific Coast Highway winds along the rugged California Big Sur coastline at Bixby Bridge

This is a pretty classic view of the California coastline, including a well-known section of the Pacific Coast Highway (route 1) below Monterey in the northern section of the Big Sur coast. Shot from high on bluffs above the ocean, where the highway climbs to one of its high points, the photograph looks north up the coast across pastureland on the foreground bluff towards the famous Bixby Bridge, located in the surf-filled cove just beyond. More bluffs and ridges dropping to the sea fade into the distant haze beyond that.

This was a beautiful spring day, so I got up very early and was in the Monterey area as the sun came up. The conditions were not quite what I expected. I knew that it was supposed to be windy, so I was expecting very clear conditions. The sky was clear of clouds, but there was quite a bit of low atmospheric haze – it almost looked like it wanted to be fog but couldn’t quite get it together to form clouds. This light does difficult things to colors, but it also creates an interesting contrast between the relatively clear closer objects and further subjects desaturated by the haze. It was also windy – very windy by the time I stopped shooting late in the morning.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Southern California

Sandstorm, Dunes

April 19, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Strong winds lift clouds of sand high into the air above desert sand dunes, Death Valley National Park.

Sandstorms are common in Death Valley, especially when I visit, typically in the spring. I wasn’t totally surprised (nor totally pleased!) when one arose on the second day of this early April visit. After photographing all morning, I was back in camp to get something to eat and take care of camp business before heading back out in the mid-afternoon for the second shoot of the day. As I sat by my camp I saw a few pillars of dust out in the valley near dunes, and at that point I had a pretty good idea of what might be in store for me in the next few hours. It wasn’t long before the wind began to pick up, soon becoming strong enough to stir up a lot of dust and blow down any weak tents left by campers who had headed out for daytime activities elsewhere.

In objective terms, a sandstorm is an unpleasant thing. It is hot. It is dry. It is full of blowing sand and dust, and the fine dust gets into everything, no matter what you do to try to protect against it. In the worst cases, the blowing sand can damage the paint on vehicles. However, in visual terms, a sandstorm can be quite interesting – as long as you can find ways to shoot it that don’t risk destroying your photographic gear. It looked to me like the main storm was in the middle of the valley, so I figured I might be able to cross the valley, take road along the other side, and skirt the far edge of the storm, and photograph back into it with the light coming from behind. I drove across the valley and stopped right at the edge of the blowing sand and mostly shot from inside my vehicle so as to minimize the dust contamination. From this vantage point I could use a long lens to photograph the abstract shapes of sand dunes, backed by clouds of whirling and drifting sand that obscured the Cottonwood Mountains on the far side of the valley.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

White Pelicans in Flight

March 23, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of white pelicans crosses the marsh before landing at a San Joaquin Valley wildlife refuge

I believe that I have written in the past about the first time I saw white pelicans in the Central Valley of California. The preface to that story is that I somehow managed to live in this part of California for my whole life without realizing that this valley is filled with an amazing diversity of migratory wildlife every winter, so I’m still “discovering” things that many other take for granted. In any case, I was out in the valley at one of the wildlife refuges on a very foggy morning when it was impossible to see more than a few dozen feet into the murk. I could hear birds, but certainly not see them. I stopped and opened the window of the car to listen, and almost immediately a flock of large birds coasted silently into and out of sight. I was somewhat taken aback and thought for a moment that they “looked like pelicans,” but since I had no idea that such birds would be found here I dismissed the thought. Later that day my friends began to talk about seeing “white pelicans,” and later they showed me where a flock was resting on a small island in a marsh.

This flock arrived late in the day and was again unexpected. We had travelled to the edge a marsh to watch a large flock of Ross’s geese. They were settled in for the afternoon, but we knew that they would begin to fly out as the end of the day approached. This time it was almost completely clear, so it was easy to see this large flock of birds as it silently floated over the edge of the marsh – with almost no flapping of wings, in great contrast to the geese! This time I more quickly figured out what I was seeing and I photographed them as the crossed into the center of the marsh and landed.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: atmosphere

Canyon Light, Big Sur

Bixby Bridge, Pacific Coast Highway

Sandstorm, Dunes

White Pelicans in Flight

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