Tag Archives: beach

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

Wave-Filled Bay, California Coast

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Wave-Filled Bay, California Coast
Surf along the beach at the mouth of San Carpoforo Creek near the southen end of the Big Sur coast.

Wave-Filled Bay, California Coast. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Surf along the beach at the mouth of San Carpoforo Creek near the southen end of the Big Sur coast.

We were recently in Southern California for the Thanksgiving holiday, and we decided to extend our drive back to Northern California, taking an extra day to drive up the Pacific Coast Highway along the Big Sur Coast. The question of just what is and is not “Bug Sur” comes up in a photograph of a location like this one. My working definition of “Big Sur” is larger than the town by that name much further north, and it encompasses everything south of roughly Carmel, down to the area below Ragged Point where the coastal landscape is much gentler. This photograph comes from the very southern end of that area — the vantage point is very close to Ragged Point, but it looks south toward those coastal lowlands.

Recently I was involved in a discussion in which someone asked about photographing some specific icons along this part of the California coast where one person chimed in with, to paraphrase, “there’s nothing left to photograph there.” While I agree that just re-photographing that handful of familiar icons is a doubtful enterprise, this hundred-mile section of coast is so complex and diverse that I cannot imagine anyone ever being “done” with it or discovering everything it offers. I’ve photographed there for decades, and I still encounter things I haven’t seen before — including this view of the coast and successive beaches and peninsulas stretching to the south.

(Note: I’m experimenting with some changes to the way I format and present photographs online. You may see some differences in how this photograph appears.)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Bluffs and Mist, Morning Light

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Bluffs and Mist, Morning Light
Coastal bluffs, morning fog and mist along the Big Sur coast.

Bluffs and Mist, Morning Light. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Coastal bluffs, morning fog and mist along the Big Sur coast.

Photographing along the Big Sur Coast in the early morning presents some challenges and some special opportunities. The challenge is straightforward — in almost all locations there are mountains to your east that block the morning light. This means that you won’t see the earliest eastern sunrise sky at all, and that the landscape is frequently all or partly in shadow. But one of the opportunities comes from the same source — light arriving along the coast just as the sun clears these obstructions often passes through narrow clefts and valleys, and when the air is full of fog and mist this can create a plethora of light beams.

Those beams are what I saw in this scene. The process of finding the composition here is one that I use a lot. I stopped at a familiar location that presents a very large and panoramic landscape featuring a famous icon. My first instinct was to photograph anything but that icon, so I framed a composition that took in a section of coast and surf running away from me to the south. After I made a few exposures of that subject, each of which tried to capture a different state of the surf, I became interested in the bluff at the far end of the scene. So I went with a very long focal length and honed in on this small part of the larger landscape, focusing on the beautiful shaft of light between the bluffs that lit up the fog and spray and highlighted sections of the surf.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: People, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Morning, Caffe Trieste

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Morning, Caffe Trieste
Patrons in line for coffee at Caffe Trieste, San Francisco.

Morning, Caffe Trieste. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Patrons in line for coffee at Caffe Trieste, San Francisco.

Last week I spend considerable time in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood. I’m a member of Studio Nocturne a group of night photographers (descended from “The Nocturnes”) who have been photographing and exhibiting together for decades. Every fall we do an “open studio” as part of The City’s Artspan Open Studio event. This year we were in the Live Worms Gallery on Grant in North Beach. We’ve been in various locations over the years, and I think this may have been one of the best spots we’ve used — lots of foot traffic, lots of places nearby to eat and drink, great atmosphere. (Terrible parking though!)

Each day I arrived an hour or so before we opened, and on the last day, Sunday, I headed a half block up Grant to this famous espresso shop. You might not know it if you just dropped in on a Sunday morning, like I did, but this is a somewhat historic location in San Francisco. In addition to being a meeting place for all sorts of interesting folks for years, it was the first espresso bar on the West Coast.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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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: Wildlife

A Seal’s Life, Part III

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A Seal's Life, Part III
A solitary elephant seal nappping on a Southern California beach.

A Seal’s Life, Part III. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A solitary elephant seal nappping on a Southern California beach.

Here is one more — and probably the last for now — in the little “Seal’s Life” series. (I resisted the temptation to call it “lounging seals” or “lazy seals” or similar.) The photographs in the set all came from a very brief visit to an easily accessible location along the shoreline below the Big Sur coast. We took that longer route on a drive to Southern California, and we decided to stop as we passed this spot, despite having stopped there many times before and despite the somewhat uninspiring lighting conditions. It is hard to resist visiting these critters!

In the other posts I mentioned the contrast between the appearance of these creatures on land, where they are somewhere in the lazy to lumbering zone, and their purported speed and grace in the water. I’m not a diver, so I’ve never seen the latter — I just get to see (and hear and smell…) them on the beach. On the day we visited, almost all of them were engaging in pretty much the same activity as this one, namely not much activity at all. The head lifted from time to time, a flipper of sand was sent onto the back, a seal rolled over… but the whole scene was mostly one of apparent sloth.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.