Tag Archives: bragg

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

Clearing Storm, Pacific Coast

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Clearing Storm, Pacific Coast
An autumn storm clears along the Northern California cost above Fort Bragg

Clearing Storm, Pacific Coast. North of Fort Bragg, California. November 19, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An autumn storm clears along the Northern California cost above Fort Bragg

On this November day, the light along the Pacific coast north of Fort Bragg, California was mostly spectacular and in a constant state of change. In rained, occasionally hard and more than once taking us by surprise, there was fog, the sun appeared, clouds were dark one moment and luminously bright the next.

We paused at this overlook, where the meeting of land and water is less steep. The nearly level coastal bluffs run along the water at the base of low coastal mountains, and the underwater slope is also apparently not very steep, judging from the distance from the shoreline that the waves begin to rise and break. The atmosphere was semi-opaque, filled with a combination of fog and light rain, and the glow of light on clouds was diffused and soft. To the west, sun broke through the clouds and lit the water brilliantly in patterns that curved toward the horizon. The waves broke against the seaward side of the huge sea stack — more of an island, really — that stood in front of us just off from the shoreline.

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 and Amazon.
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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Thinking Aloud

Fallen Begonia Blossom

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Fallen Begonia Blossom - A fallen begonia blossom on a bench at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens
A fallen begonia blossom on a bench at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens

Fallen Begonia Blossom. Mendocino Coast Botanical Garden, Fort Bragg, California. August 27, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A fallen begonia blossom on a bench at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens.

On a recent trip to the northern California coast around Mendocino, we spent the better part of a day wandering around at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens in Fort Bragg. If you ever visit this part of California, you will quickly discover that there are lots of flowers there, both wildflowers and cultivated varieties – they seem to like the cooler, moister, foggier climate. The Botanical Gardens is surprisingly large and comprehensive for a private facility in a somewhat out-of-the-way location. It covers many acres, stretching from the coast highway all the way to the edge of bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and it includes a wide range of plant types, not all of which are what you would expect here.

This was our first visit to the Gardens, so we sort of explored rather than trying to necessarily see everything. Not far from the entrance is the structure of the Mauer Display Garden, where begonias were blooming. The flowers and the intensity of their colors were quite amazing. At one point I believe I remarked that I had never seen anything quite as intensely orange as some of the flowers. At one point I looked away from the main displays of living plants and happened to notice this very colorful blossom that had fallen onto the corner of a bench. While the color probably seems unbelievable, it really was this intense. (Photographing these flowers proved to be a great reminder of the exposure challenges we face when using DSLRs to shoot subjects that are intense in one of the three color channels. In some photographs, the red channel was perhaps three to four stops brighter than the other channels!)

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.
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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.