Tag Archives: bank

Coit Tower, Fog

Coit Tower, Fog
Coit Tower, Fog

Coit Tower, Fog. San Francisco, California. December 16. 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Swirling fog and mist engulf San Francisco’s Coit Tower and Telegraph Hill.

One more in this series of photographs of the San Francisco waterfront and downtown areas in brightly back-lit, early morning conditions in which the City was nearly obscured by drifting fog. All of the photographs in the series were made from a location near the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, just a bit up the road into the Marin Headlands. Like several of the others, this one was shot with a 400mm focal length lens, pointing almost directly in the direction of the rising sun. For some of the exposures I had to stand a couple feet in front of the camera, at the maximum extension of my remote release cable, and carefully position my hand to shade the front element of the lens.

Here the fog has almost completely obscured Coit Tower at the top of Telegraph Hill. If you look very carefully to the left of Coit Tower you can barely make out the ghostly image of the top of one of the towers of the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge. It was my good fortune that a slightly less opaque section of the drifting fog momentarily framed the summit of Telegraph Hill.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Autumn Rain, Merced River

Autumn Rain, Merced River
Autumn Rain, Merced River

Autumn Rain, Merced River. Yosemite Valley, California. October 30, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Fall colors and mist along the Merced River, Yosemite Valley.

Returning to the land of color – after a spate of recent black and white posts – this is a photograph made on a rainy day along the Merced River in Yosemite Valley, as fall color came to the trees and bushes and fog drifted along the walls of the Valley. This photograph was made from the bridge near Curry Village as it rained lightly and the colors were reflected in the calm surface of the river. Probably because of the damp weather and the relatively early hour there was hardly any one else around, and this in a location that is often quite busy.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Dead Branches, Bishop Creek

Dead Branches, Bishop Creek
Dead Branches, Bishop Creek

Dead Branches, Bishop Creek. Sierra Nevada, California. October 3, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A tangle of dead branches along the banks of Bishop Creek, Sierra Nevada, California.

Another photographic irony, perhaps, but I made this photograph within sight of the gaudiest and flashiest brilliant autumn aspen leaves that I saw during the first week of October in the Bishop Creek area. I’m not exaggerating. I had earlier spotted the “gaudy, flashy” trees as I drove away from a nearby location and looked, almost in shock, at their intense red, gold, and orange colors. For various reasons, I did not stop, but I made a mental note to come back here later in the day. When I returned went straight to the color and spent some time photographing it. (A photo of those trees will show up here before long.)

As I finished shooting that obvious autumn subject, I slowed down a bit and walked along the side of the creek in the fading evening light. As I did so, I noticed these tangles of old, dead branches along the bank and wondered how I might photograph them. The interesting and apparently random juxtapositions of the gray branches intrigued me right away, as did the various textures and shapes and combinations of bright and shadowed features. As I looked closer the colors of the scene began to become more visible – the red-brown colors of the pine cone at lower left, the similar tones of the fallen needles, and the slender lines of green where a few blades of grass draped across the branches.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Sub-Alpine Ponds in Afternoon Light, Artist Point

Sub-Alpine Ponds in Afternoon Light, Artist Point
Sub-Alpine Ponds in Afternoon Light, Artist Point

Sub-Alpine Ponds in Afternoon Light, Artist Point. Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, Washington. August 28, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A trail weaves through meadow and among sub-alpine ponds at Artist Point with the ridge of Mt. Shuksan beyond – Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, Washington.

This is another photograph from my late-August afternoon exploration of the stunning ridgeline of Artist Point in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest near the Mt. Baker ski area. This ridge runs through an intimate landscape comprised of small rock fields, meadows with running streams, groves and isolated high elevation trees, and small ponds – and provides a truly stunning panorama that takes in Mount Baker on one side and Mount Shuksan on the other, with distant peaks all around. We could hardly have asked for better conditions for late-afternoon photography. Dramatic clouds ringed the peaks, sometimes obscuring them and sometimes clearing for a moment, and bright sun alternated with softer and diffused light as cloud shadows moved across the ridge.

A bit further along the ridge there is a series of small snow-melt lakes – what I usually refer to as “tarns” in the Sierra. Here a trail winds in front of a couple of them that sit in rocky hollows in front a few ridgeline trees, with the cloud-shrouded shoulder of glacier-covered Mount Shuksan beyond.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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