Tag Archives: beach

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

Elephant Seal – Face and Flippers

March 1, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

In a pile of elephant seals, one animal rests its head on the back of another

Here is another elephant seal “portrait” from our end-of-January to an elephant seal “nursery” near the southern end of California’s Big Sur coastline. We had a day to photograph the Big Sur coast, so we made this spot the target for our turn-around point, photographing the coast on the way down and back.

This popular place to view the elephant seals when they come ashore for breeding is very close to the Pacific Coast Highway, and it attracts a lot of visitors. In contrast to many such places, where the seals are (lucky for them!) not very accessible to visitors, here a walkway has been constructed along a low bluff right above the beach where the seals give birth and raise pups each winter. In most ways, this is some of the least challenging wildlife photography you’ll ever encounter! Yet the opportunity to be so close to these huge beasts is hard to resist. The photography turns out to be just a bit more tricky than you might think when you show up to find hundreds of elephant seals laid out along a beach that is only a few yards away from your position. The seals are not exactly the most active critters around, and most of the time they lie prone in the sand, occasionally slapping a flipper or opening an eye. My approach is to watch for animals in positions that might make good photographs should they decide to become active, and then to watch attentively for signs of action and, especially, for interactions among the animals or the occasional animal watching me.

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

Kelp and Stone

February 27, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Kelp washed up on sandstone rocks at Weston Beach, California

I met a group of photographer friends at Point Lobos on this mid-February day, where we spent the entire morning photographing before taking a midday break, followed by a quick visit to another location a bit further down the Pacific Coast Highway, and then a return to Point Lobos in the early evening. Perhaps to no one’s surprise, we started shooting near Weston Beach – but perhaps to everyone’s surprise, we were still shooting there when lunchtime rolled around! Fortunately, the light was somewhat cooperative, with some high clouds muting the sun that would otherwise have been too intense by that time of day.

We did not limit ourselves entirely to Weston Beach, and we wandered a bit north and south along bluff and rocks at times, photographing the huge winter surf. Eventually I ended up back at the “beach” (which seems not very beach-like at all, being mostly layered rock and big gravelly rocks) where I always like to look around slowly for interesting arrangements of whatever the sea throws up here. In one spot I found a pair of marble-round rocks, one pink and the other deep blue. Here I found a beautifully twisted and curved bit of kelp sitting on top of deeply patterned rocks not far from the edge of the water. In fact, it was so close to the water’s edge that I was only able to make a couple of exposures before a wave came far enough up on the beach to wash this kelp back out into the sea.

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

Colorful Pebbles, Layered Sandstone

February 25, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two colorful pebbles rest on layered shoreline sandstone, Point Reyes Reserve

As I mentioned in an earlier post, when I visit Weston Beach at Point Lobos I often spend some time wandering around near the edge of the water, looking for interesting bits and pieces of “stuff” washed up by the winter surf. The stuff can range from small stones to kelp. Many of the stones are, not surprisingly, well-rounded from being rolled around in the surf. Occasionally a very colorful stone will show up… but here I got lucky and found these two, one deep blue and the other an intense pink-burgundy, sitting side by side in an indentation in the textured and layered shoreline sandstone.

It takes a bit of luck–and some observation–to find such things, but that isn’t quite enough. The light has to be right, too, and that isn’t always a sure thing here. It can be foggy, though that wasn’t the concern on this mid-February winter day. Since we arrived well into the morning hours, it was quite possible that as the sky cleared we would find the light far too harsh. However, luck was with us, and a high, thin layer of clouds moved in and muted the intensity of the light. I framed up this little composition and just waited for subtle changes in the light that would provide a soft shadow that was filled in with soft light.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Wildlife

Elephant Seals – Mother and Pup

February 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A dark elephant seal pup rests its head on its lighter-colored mother.

I first visited this popular elephant seal calving area a few years back when I took a detour on a trip back from Southern California. I was familiar with the elephant seals of northern California, but I had not realized that they were in the south as well, so I was surprised when I came upon this place which has been set up as an observation station where visitors can watch a beach full of these immense creatures close-up. As I understand the outlines of the story, their numbers had decreased to very low levels until they were protected a few decades ago. Since then the population has rebounded. Each year when I visit this location it seems like I see more of them, and they are now starting to show up on other nearby beaches.

These animals are wild and tough creatures. They spend large parts of their lives in the ocean where they are apparently graceful creatures. On land, where they are found here, they can appear to be lazy and awkward and almost humorous at times. At this location in the winter, they mostly seem to lie on the sand – where they are no doubt safe from large off-shore predators – as they raise their pups. From what I read, the females come ashore and then do not eat during the period when they nurse their pups to weights of a few hundred pounds! The herd produces a wild cacophony of sounds that I do not have the vocabulary to fully describe – cries, screams, roars, and the deep and mechanical sound of the large males. Occasional fights erupt, especially a bit later in the season as the males battle for dominance. But if you look around in this mass of seal flesh, you can spot some vignettes that seem somewhere between funny and cute. This small back pup had lifted its head up so that could rest it on the back of the larger and lighter colored elephant seal, which I presume to be its mother.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: beach

Elephant Seal – Face and Flippers

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Kelp and Stone

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Colorful Pebbles, Layered Sandstone

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Elephant Seals – Mother and Pup

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

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