Tag Archives: beams

Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Morning Light, Redwoods

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Morning Light, Redwoods
Morning Light, Redwoods

Morning Light, Redwoods. Muir Woods National Monument, California. August 1, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Light beams shine between redwood trees, Muir Woods National Monument

During essentially the entire month of July, in what is typically my prime time for being in the Sierra and other wild places doing landscape photography, we were instead traveling in the UK, Germany, and Austria. It was a great trip – and I’d do it again in a heartbeat! – but I’ve missed my natural world here in California, and it was about time to return to it. So I marked the first day of August by getting up well before the crack of dawn and heading north across the Golden Gate to spend a morning in the cool and quiet of redwood groves. (To those who have been to Muir Woods when it is, as is too often the case, overrun by tourists from San Francisco, I’ll just say that if you go very and on the right day, you can briefly have the place almost to yourself.)

I was the first or perhaps second person to arrive at Muir Woods, well before the gates were open and the kiosks manned, so I loaded up the camera gear and ambled slowly into the park, taking in the cool air, the quiet, and the soft early morning light. I had to particular photographs in mind, so I just took the time to go slowly and look around. In the end, I came back with perhaps four that I like – which is a pretty good haul! – and the others might be just a bit less iconic than this one. I made this photograph at just about the time I had decided that my work for the morning was done – the sun was getting high in the sky and creating the hard-to-photograph “pizza light” and more visitors were starting to show up. As I turned around to start back I saw this small grove above on the hillside, with some light beams passing through the branches, so I switched lenses and made this photograph.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Turret Skylight, SFMOMA

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Turret Skylight, SFMOMA
Turret Skylight, SFMOMA

Turret Skylight, SFMOMA. San Francisco, California. May 31, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Vertical format black and white photograph of light streaming through the upper reaches of the turret skylight above the atrium at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

This is a second photograph made during a recent visit to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, or SFMOMA, on the weekend before the place closed for two years of renovation and expansion work. Only days before did I realize that it was about to close and the extraordinary length of the closure, and I quickly adjusted my plans to get up there one more time. I wanted to wander the facility itself, but I especially wanted to see the excellent exhibit of the work of photographer Garry Winogrand.

This skylight is a dominant feature when the museum exterior is viewed from the west, where its tilted and round shape stands out from almost anything else nearby. Inside the building it creates a wonderful space full of light that somehow seems intimate, even though it is the highest point in a very large lobby atrium. The small diameter of the space and the walkway that splits it in two probably contribute to this effect. This photograph is a highly interpreted or stylized view of the subject, and is the result of a great deal of work in post-production – which almost seems somewhat ironic since the photograph was made handheld with a very small rangefinder style mirrorless digital camera.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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: Abstract, Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Pilings and Sky

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Pilings and Sky - Pilings stretch toward the sky at a San Francisco construction site
Pilings stretch toward the sky at a San Francisco construction site

Pilings and Sky. San Francisco, California. April 20, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Pilings stretch toward the sky at a San Francisco construction site.

On this April morning I was walking around in the China Basin, Mission Bay area of San Francisco, having arrived on the train at the Fourth and Townsend Caltrain station very early. After photographing some light reflected in buildings not far from the station, I wandered over towards the Mission Bay area. There is a lot of construction going on in this “neighborhood” right now, and one particular block was a hotbed of work.

At one corner of this block work was well underway to set a large number of tall pilings into the ground for – I assume – a building that is soon to be erected here. I managed to maneuver myself into a spot where I could eliminate most of the other distractions and compose a photograph of these structures pointing toward the sky.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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: Nature, Photographs: Utah

Cliff, Green River Overlook

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Cliff, Green River Overlook - The canyon of the Green River beyond a band of sandstone cliffs, Canyonlands National Park, Utah
The canyon of the Green River beyond a band of sandstone cliffs, Canyonlands National Park, Utah

Cliff, Green River Overlook. Canyonlands National Park, Utah. April 6, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The canyon of the Green River beyond a band of sandstone cliffs, Canyonlands National Park, Utah.

I was in this spot primarily to photograph the late afternoon and evening light on the canyons, cliffs, plateaus, and mesas around the Green River. (I’ve recently posted a couple of other photographs of that subject.) One of the many striking aspects of the geology in this park is the sudden cliffs that drop from the edges of large flat areas. The upper portion of Canyonlands park, called the “Island in the Sky” is such a place. It is a large and relatively flat plateau, and if you disregard the more distant surroundings it seems like a prairie or perhaps a high desert grassland. But when you venture to its edges you most often find, on at least three of its sides, that there is a sudden drop off where the river systems below have eroded the surrounding terrain up to the edges of giant sandstone strata. I’m not an expert on the area, but one thing I read pointed out, if I recall correctly, that there is an upper plateau (the island in the sky), a 1000 foot drop, another plateau marked by the White Rim, and then another sudden drop into the depths of the surrounding river canyons.

So this bit of vertical sandstone is the upper portion of part of that first 1000-foot drop-off, in this case with the White Rim plateau and then some additional canyons beyond. Shooting late in the day, I was pointing the camera almost straight into the light – something that I often like to do. This allowed me to capture the faint shadow in the atmospheric haze formed as the light passed between two buttes at the upper edge of the frame. It also created a bit of a challenge in retaining detail in the fully shaded dark-colored cliff face! I was able to capture this in a single exposure that tested the dynamic range of my camera, and then bring back a bit of the cliff detail in post. Now, if I had just had someone stand, or better yet, dance on that cliff edge… Any volunteers for my next visit? ;-)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.