Tag Archives: bay

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

Point Reyes and Drakes Bay

July 1, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Drakes Bay and the Point Reyes Peninsula, viewed from near Mount Vision on Inverness Ridge

After photographing very early in the morning along the shores of Tomales Bay near the town of Inverness, I continued along the road to Point Reyes and soon entered the national seashore. There was a possibility that I might try to meet up with a group of people who planned to photograph the herds of tule elk a bit later in the morning, but at this point I had some time to kill before that might occur. I wasn’t quite sure where I was going to shoot, so I was sort of “following my nose” and the light, atmosphere, and other conditions and waiting to see where I might end up. I had a general idea that it might be interesting to go all the way out to the point itself, where the morning light might illuminate some of the cliffs along Drakes Bay that don’t get that sort of light later in the day.

However, long before I got close to that area I passed a turn-off that I had often noticed and wondered about, a road labelled Mount Vision. With one option looking just about as good as any other option, I decided to head up that road to see what I could see. The road climbs quickly, more or less switchbacking up a steep include and up a few valleys before more or less leveling off high up on Inverness Ridge, actually ascending to the top of the ridge in a few spots and providing panoramic views both towards the ocean and back towards Tomales Bay. Although it wasn’t exactly foggy – at least not in the form that is common here much of the year – the atmosphere was obscured and out at the far end of the peninsula the curving end of Point Reyes was a bit hard to see, and there was a distinct blue quality to the haze that didn’t seem like it was going to work especially well for a color photograph. So I started thinking that this scene might work better in black and white. Soon I saw this steep foreground ridge with its tall trees and dark shaded elements and it seemed like its angle and darker tones might set off the lighter and less contrasty elements of the landscape in the distance, from the tree-filled valley in the middle of the frame to the barely visible peninsula near the horizon.

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: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Launch For Hire Building

June 18, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The “Launch For Hire” building, docks, and Tomales Bay as remnants of morning fog drift above the water

I shared a color version of this photograph back in March, not too long after I made the photograph. The building is an old wooden structure that sits on pilings above the waters of Tomales Bay, and is probably familiar (especially with its “LAUNCH FOR HIRE” sign) to almost anyone who passes by on the way to Point Reyes. In fact, that is precisely where I was headed. I had gone up there quite early, hoping to arrive early enough to be at Drakes Bay for sunrise. However, other sites along the way distracted me, and after I finished photographing them I found myself delayed, and the sun was rising over the Marin County hills as I drove around the bay. This photograph was made a few minutes later, after the very first light had already come and gone.

The “black and white or color?” question is a new one for those of us who started out photographing on film “back in the day.” Some of you reading this no doubt think that this context is obvious, but in a world in which some actually don’t understand, for example, how a rotary dial telephone worked, this context will likely soon become as unfamiliar as using a horse and buggy. Whether to shoot color or black and white was, only a bit more than a decade ago, a decision what was made well before clicking the shutter. Put black and white film in the camera and shoot black and white, or put color media in the camera and shoot color. (In most cases – with sheet film it was possible to choose, though that didn’t tend to be the work process of such photographers.) Now we have the odd advantage – or, sometimes, the burden – of having to decide based on the nature of the subject and how we see it. Quite a few photographers using digital media will tell you that they don’t always know for sure whether a shot will work best in black and white or color at the time of exposure. (Sometimes you do, but not always.) So we “capture” the scene in color and put off the final decision until the post-processing stage. Even there it can occasionally be hard to decide. This was one of those cases – and both the color and black and white versions live on for now.

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

San Francisco Skyline, Bridge Cables

June 13, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Golden Gate Bridge Cables silhouetted against hazy morning light on San Francisco Bay and city skyline

Back in March I took a day to go up into Marin County to do some early spring photography, thinking about the possibility of shooting in the redwood forest at Muir Woods – which was, in fact, where I ended up. I left well before dawn, and crossed the Golden Gate Bridge right about the time the sun was coming up. Being a big fan of shooting in atmospheric haze of all sorts, the very thin layer of fog spreading across the entrance to the bay was enough to make me pull over and make a few photographs of the bay and the city.

This was an unusual sort of fog. We are more familiar with the banks of thick fog coming in off of the Pacific and flowing in through the Golden Gate, covering the bridge and rising over the shoulders or even the summits of the hills, often with a fairly sharp boundary between fog and clear air. This fog, however, was thin and more widespread and did not form the familiar “bank.” It was closer to translucent than to opaque, and the outline of the downtown San Francisco skyline was visible, though all details were muted. The identity of the foreground structure probably needs no explanation!

Photographs: Northern California

Pier at China Camp

June 1, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The old fishing pier at China Camp, California

This is another photograph from my first visit to the China Camp site along the northern San Francisco Bay, a place I had thought about visiting and photographing for several years. It was a Chinese immigrant settlement in the 1800s and apparently there was a thriving shrimp harvesting operation there. Today it is essentially ghost town, though one that has been stabilized and fixed up and which incorporates some “interpretive” facilities. I ended up there in conjunction with a “long-exposure photo walk” weekend that photographed a number of Bay Area locations over the course of three days. Though I did not participate in the entire event, I did join up with them on one morning to photograph dawn at the Golden Gate and then to travel up to China Camp.

This pier was the subject of several of my photographs on this day. It is an interesting and compelling subject in a bunch of ways. Its historical context of course makes it interesting, but there are several interesting visual aspects to it, too, and the overall feelings are of quiet and space and perhaps a bit of desolation. The pier itself is unlike most that I’ve seen. Power poles with utility lines run along its length. Ladders descend to the waterline for entry into small boats. Birds sit on top of high points along the pier. The water in the China Camp lagoon is almost completely still, and there is a great expanse of open water beyond with only low hills on the far horizon. (This quality reminded me just a bit of some views of Mono Lake.) For this photograph I used a 9-stop neutral density filter so that I could extend the exposure to last many seconds, further smoothing the surface of the water. I made about a half-dozen exposures, trying to get on in which the darned birds would hold relatively still for 5-10 seconds… and they finally cooperated on the last shot.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: bay

Point Reyes and Drakes Bay

Launch For Hire Building

San Francisco Skyline, Bridge Cables

Pier at China Camp

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