Tag Archives: big

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

Yankee Point and Cypress, Carmel Highlands, Dusk

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Yankee Point and Cypress, Carmel Highlands, Dusk
Yankee Point and Cypress, Carmel Highlands, Dusk

Yankee Point and Cypress, Carmel Highlands, Dusk. Big Sur, California. January 2, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A Carmel Highlands cypress trees stands at the edge of a cliff above the Pacific Ocean and Yankee Point at dusk.

Oddly, this is a photograph that sort of “didn’t make the cut” the first time I went through the batch shortly after making the photographs in early 2010. I had spent the afternoon photographing further south in the Big Sur area and several other photographs from the set turned out more as I expected – and this one seemed like a sort of problem child photograph, so I didn’t take the time needed to work with it. Eventually I forgot about it as I went on to other projects.

The photo had been almost a bit of a grab shot. As I was heading north back up the coast, thinking I had finished my shooting and was now on the way home, I was stunned to catch a glimpse of some intense post-sunset light as I rounded the bend at the head of this cove in Carmel Highlands. I wasn’t certain that I could find a composition and work out a photograph in the brief interval the probably remained before the light faded, but I quickly put on the wide angle zoom, attached the camera to the tripod, and headed over to the edge of the bluff. Exposure was a terrible problem because the brilliant and very colorful sky was quite bright, while the close side of the foreground tree was nearly black. I made managed to shoot the scene a few times, shifting from landscape to portrait mode and making three bracketed exposures of each composition.

When I got home and looked at the raw files I think I decided that it was just going to be too much work for too little reward, and I instead went to work on more promising shots from earlier in the afternoon. This week I came upon the series of shots again and wondered what I could do with them. My first inclination was to go with the color, and I did come up with a portrait orientation image in color that I will probably post before long. Then, as I began to work on the landscape mode image, I started to see it as having potential as a monochrome image. I tried it. I liked it. And here it is!

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Shoreline Plants and Sandstone, Weston Cove

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Shoreline Plants and Sandstone, Weston Cove
Shoreline Plants and Sandstone, Weston Cove

Shoreline Plants and Sandstone, Weston Cove. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. October 23, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Plants grow in cracks in the sandstone along the shore of Weston Cove, Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

On this visit to Point Lobos, a place I photograph frequently, I wasn’t quite sure what conditions I would encounter. A Pacific weather front was approaching and I thought that I might encounter dismal, overcast conditions – but I was surprised to find it mostly sunny when I arrived. Even better, high, thin clouds were approaching the coast line and soon muted the direct sunlight, which made photographing these shoreline rock formations a more reasonable possibility during the late morning.

I’m pretty familiar with Point Lobos in general at this point, having visited the place from the time I was a child. I’m especially familiar with Weston Beach (or “cove,” as I like to think of it), with its circular shape, protective rock barrier, angled sandstone edges, and large pebbly “sand.” But as familiar as I am with this location, I almost alway find something new if I look around carefully enough, and these plants growing in the angular cracks in the sandstone were new to me.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Colorful Pebbles, Weston Cove

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Colorful Pebbles, Weston Cove
Colorful Pebbles, Weston Cove

Colorful Pebbles, Weston Cove. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. October 23, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Colorful pebbles washed up near the water line at Weston Cove, Point Lobos.

This is another “wandering around on the beach with my eyes open” photograph, made at Weston Cove at Point Lobos. This little circular cove has a pebble beach so there are lots of small pebbles of all colors and shapes along the edge of the water. As I wander about this spot I find the pebbles fascinating, both visually and for the sound they make as they are dragged back toward the sea by the retreating waves. While there are pebbles everywhere – in every small hollow or crack, at the surf’s edge, even further up the “beach” where they were left by higher tides and storms – interesting juxtapositions of the pebbles are a bit harder to find. I was fascinated by this little collection, both because of the linear and curving relationships between their positions and because of the very different and colorful types of rock against the background of sandstone.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Kelp and Rock, Weston Cove

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Kelp and Rock, Weston Cove
Kelp and Rock, Weston Cove

Kelp and Rock, Weston Cove. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. October 23, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dried kelp on rocks near the surf line at Weston Cove, Point Lobos.

On this late-October Saturday I traveled to the Monterey Peninsula for the opening of Charlie Cramer’s ‘Earth, Water, Light’ show and lecture at the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel. (You should go if you are in the area! The show runs from now through the end of the year and perhaps a week or so beyond.) With a winter-season Pacific storm coming in I wasn’t certain of what to expect from the weather, but ended up shooting in some wonderful light at Point Lobos.

There are many subjects to shoot there, and the light is one of the main factors (along with the season, the time of day, and random inclinations…) determining the subjects I’ll focus on. With the edge of the high clouds from the approaching storm diffusing the light it seemed like a good opportunity to shoot the rocks and kelp and other subjects along the shore line. When I shoot these subjects, especially in and around Point Lobos, I often have to slow down and just wander and look before I can really see the possibilities. A quick glance more or less gets me no farther than, “Look! Kelp! And rocks!” But if I wander around slowly and look carefully I’ll usually find some things of special interest among the piles of stones and kelp and other stuff that washes up. I often seen the thick tubular kelp forms like the one at the bottom of this frame, but seeing it with the more delicate material still attached – much less spread out this way on the rocks – is unusual, so I spent some time working with this subject.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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