Tag Archives: beams

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: People In Landscape

Evening Overlook

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Evening Overlook
Two people watching the early evening view of immense desert mountains from a high overlook.

Evening Overlook. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Two people watching the early evening view of immense desert mountains from a high overlook.

Late in the day during my recent Death Valley visit I went to this overlook. It is more typically a place to photograph the sunrise, which comes from camera-left and illuminates the big ridges in the distance. But I had a free evening, not a morning, so I figured it was worth a shot. I arrived before sunset, and I made this photograph before the sun had dropped behind the western ridge, though the haze and high clouds softened the light a bit.

I’ve never been able to quite describe in words the experience of standing on a very high point in such a vast landscape. From here one can look 5000′ down into Death Valley or look 6000′ up toward the highest peak in the Panamint Range and simultaneously feel “on top of the world” and very, very small in the presence of such immensity.

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

Winter Light, San Luis Reservoir

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Winter Light, San Luis Reservoir
High clouds, fog, and brilliant light on a winter day over San Luis Reservoir, California.

Winter Light, San Luis Reservoir. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

High clouds, fog, and brilliant light on a winter day over San Luis Reservoir, California.

Because it lies between the southern San Francisco Bay Area and California’s Great Central Valley — and on the route to many interesting places ranging from the Sierra to Southern California and Death Valley — I have driven past the San Luis Reservoir probably hundreds of times over the years. (I’m old enough to barely recall the area before there was a reservoir, from trips when I was a young child.) Being just another part of the system to transport water in the state, I hardly think of it as one of California’s great scenic wonders.

But in the right conditions and the right light, it becomes difficult to ignore it as a landscape subject. The reservoir is huge and it is surrounded on three sides by mountains. Because of the expansive scale, light can reflect off its surface in ways that mimic what I sometimes see along the Pacific Ocean coast. It also picks up the winter atmosphere, with its fogs and mists, from the Central Valley. And because the road runs more or less along its northern shore, all of this is frequently backlit, as in this photograph that I made in the middle of the day while returning from the Central Valley.

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

Rocks, Spray, and Light Beams

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Rocks, Spray, and Light Beams
Beams of morning light slant through spray thrown up by waves crashing on rocks along the Big Sur coast.

Rocks, Spray, and Light Beams. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Beams of morning light slant through spray thrown up by waves crashing on rocks along the Big Sur coast.

California’s Big Sur Coast is easily accessible to me, close enough that I can drive down there early in the morning, photograph for a few hours, and be home for a late lunch. (Yeah, I’m spoiled.) Some of my very earliest photography memories come from this part of the world, when I carried a simple camera on family trips to Point Lobos. At this point, decades later, you’d think that I’d know everything there is to know about the regions. But you’d be wrong. Virtually every time I go there I discover something new — a view I had not seen before, a new kind of atmosphere or light, a different way of looking at a familiar subject.

This photograph fits that last category. The location is a spot that I’ve stopped at for years, mostly to photograph a particular larger scene that includes a natural bridge, some sea stacks, and a bridge. (No, not _that_ bridge — I know which one you are thinking of!) On this early November visit I was a bit surprised by the size of the surf. Big surf is common in autumn through winter here, but I had not seen that it was in the forecast. To make this photograph I decided to leave out the thing that is usually my primary subject here and to include some things that I usually try to leave out! The photograph is, as a result, an example of letting some small, isolated element represent and perhaps evoke the experience of the larger landscape in which it is found.

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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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Beneath Desert Mountains, Morning

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Beneath Desert Mountains, Morning
Desert mountains and morning light spreading across an alluvial fan.

Beneath Desert Mountains, Morning. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Desert mountains and morning light spreading across an alluvial fan.

This is more or less where I had hoped to be in January, even up until a couple of months ago. At that time, careful travel into lonely places was still a reasonable option, especially since I stop only for gas and would have camped well off the beaten track, barely interacting with anyone at all. But wanting to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, I’m following the guidelines to not travel more than 120 miles from my home, and I’m also not going to play games and try to sneak into the Death Valley backcountry… regardless of how appealing that sounds and of how badly I miss the place right now.

This photograph is one of those that illustrates the advice to look all around while making photographs. Sometimes the thing you came to see isn’t the only thing to attend to. I had come to this spot before dawn to photograph a subject that lies directly behind the camera position of this scene, and had worked on it as the scene transitioned from soft, pre-sunrise light through a somewhat colorful sunrise to light that was becoming more harsh than I desired. So I turned around. Here the backlit atmosphere glowed in the light streaming over the rugged desert hills to the east.

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.