Tag Archives: black and white

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

Mountains, Sea, and Haze

May 28, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Spring haze, morning light, and rugged mountains meeting the Pacific Ocean, Big Sur coast

This spot marked the furthest south that I travelled on my brief photographic foray along the Big Sur coast earlier this week. Here, as in a number of other spots along this section of the Pacific Coast Highway, the route rises high above the ocean to pass through a section of very steep cliffs where the coastal mountains and the ocean meet abruptly. From this overlook the spines of a few nearby ridges were just to my south, and beyond the shoreline disappeared into the glowing atmospheric haze to the south.

One of the advantages of modern digital cameras is that they permit more flexibility and allow us to make aesthetic choices about our photographs more freely. Although I mostly “see” in color, sometimes a subject works better in black and white. Sometimes I don’t even realize this at the time of the exposure. Which is OK, since digital allows us to sometimes think less of “making the photograph” in the field and perhaps more about “bringing the image back” for full realization in the post-processing stage. In some cases, it allows us to focus more on pure capture and to put off some of the decisions we might have had to make at that point until later. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing! However, this is an example of a photograph that I knew was going to be black and white as soon as I saw the scene. Looking south along this coast on a day like this one, the air is filled with a haze made luminous by backlight. Colors are often so muted that they might as well be black and white, and the haze itself can take on a strong blue cast. Here I didn’t want that blue haze effect, but I did want the glow and the strong shapes of the ridges dropping into the sea.

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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Desert Mountains, Rain

May 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Afternoon rain falls on peaks beyond a rising series of rugged desert mountain ridges, Death Valley National Park

This turned out to be a surprisingly and almost ridiculously productive day of photography, which was not at all what I expected as the day began nor at any number of times later in the day. Much of what happened was unplanned and the result of discovering things and of reacting intuitively to changing conditions. Prior to getting up before dawn to head to out first shooting location, my description of what I hoped would happen on this day or even of what I expected would happen would have had little in common with how it evolved. I have related some of the details of the earlier parts of the day already—sunrise light cut short by an incoming storm, the surprise discovery of abundant high desert mountain wildflowers, a snow storm, a first visit to an old historic site, and more—so I’ll just briefly mention the later part of the day. The winter storm, that brought some rain and snow to Death Valley National Park mountains, finally broke up, leaving a few showers high up in the mountains along with brilliant light coming through gaps in the thinning clouds, and these conditions lasted right on into the evening.

I made this photograph in the late afternoon. There was still plenty of rain or snow among the peaks, though the air was much clearer below and, indeed, some light was beginning to come through the clouds. Here I had a clear view across a portion of the valley, over the alluvial material at the base of the Cotton Mountains, and on up across the layered ridges toward the cloud-shrouded higher peaks. I had an idea for this as a photograph, but the light was difficulty and I knew that significant work in post would be required. Indeed, while this might seem like a simple natural landscape, the final version here is the result of significant work done after the fact in the digital darkroom.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Desert Morning, Light and Shadow

May 2, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Morning light and shadows play across the immense landscape of southern Death Valley as storm clouds build.

This photograph reminds me of the immense scale of the Death Valley landscape. Photographed from high in the Panamint Range very early on a morning when a storm was building—it would later snow in our location—the contrast between the cloud-shadowed foreground and the early morning light in the distant valley emphasizes the vast distances in the scene. The light began closing down essentially right at dawn as the clouds of a Pacific weather front came in from the west behind us. (As I made this photograph light snow was falling on the ridge above and behind my position.) The dark clouds building over our position along the crest of the Panamint Range were beginning to extend out over the Valley and build over each of the ranges extending into the distance.

As I made this photograph the main portion of Death Valley, below us to the left and extending into the lower part of the frame here, had fallen into shadow, along with the range of mountains running along its eastern edge. The clouds had not yet worked their way to the south, and where the Valley turns toward the east there was early morning sunlight still spilling into the lower section of the Valley and lighting distant mountains and arid salt flats and atmospheric haze. Even further in the distance some thickening clouds are visible above a single very distant peak.

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

Old and New Ferns

April 24, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

New ferns grow against a backdrop of last year’s dead ferns

These ferns are an easily visible part of the annual cycle of growth and decay in the redwood forest. At the right time of the year they can produce very lush green growth in some areas, but later on in the season they die back and they are instead dry and brown. Each spring, after rain and as the days get longer, the cycle starts again and the new green shoots appear against the backdrop of the old, dead plants.

This is such a spot, and the main frond is, indeed, this year’s new growth. The shriveled plants underneath, hanging straight down the bit of hillside, are the brown plants left from the previous year. I initially was thinking of a color photograph when I made the exposure, looking at the obvious contrasts between the new and old and especially between the green and brown colors. But somehow, as I looked at it in post, the color rendition wasn’t working and it started to feel like monochrome might be more interesting. (Yes, sometimes I do not know which way I’ll go with a photograph at the time of exposure, and the post-processing phase ends up being as much a time of discovery as the time when I make the initial exposure.)

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: black and white

Mountains, Sea, and Haze

Desert Mountains, Rain

Desert Morning, Light and Shadow

Old and New Ferns

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