Tag Archives: bright

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Rocks and Surf, Point Lobos

August 20, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Long exposure black and white photograph of offshore rocks, surf, and fog at the Point Lobos State Reserve, California

This photograph is from last summer and a visit to Point Lobos when I decided to work with very long exposures in daylight muted by coastal fog. A set of these photographs has sat in my raw file collection since then, as I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to render them in the post-processing stage. I used a 9-stop neutral density filter to darken the scene a great deal and permit the very long exposure that allowed the surf to blur and become diffused. However, these filters invariably have an effect on color balance that is not very lovely – they add a slight almost purple cast to the image. As I thought about them as color images, I could not find a color balance that worked – so I put them aside.

Last week, spurred by another rapidly filling hard drive, I began to go through more of my older raw files to see what could be deleted. Indeed, there were quite a few files that could go – duplicates, errors, some images that really will never live up to what I had expected them to be. But as I do every time I engage in this activity, I found several photographs that I had either overlooked originally or which needed to be processed in ways that I hadn’t thought about at the time. It occurred to me that this one might become one of my “minimalist seascape” photographs if I went for a high key interpretation in black and white.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Textures, Photographs: Urban/Street

Door Knob, Green Wall, and Grass

June 8, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A worn green wall with doorknob, grass along the street, Fremont District, Seattle, Washington.

I made this photograph on my one-hour “Seattle PhotoWalk” in the Fremont District back in early May. A group of Seattle photographs was getting together to photograph between here and the Gas Works Park in the late afternoon and evening, and it turned out that I was in the Seattle area and able to pry open a bit of time in my schedule to meet up with them and explore the interesting photographic opportunities in the Fremont area.

We started in what I suppose must be “downtown Fremont,” right beneath the statue of Lenin. Yes, a statue of Lenin. It is a long story – but the short version, as I understand it, involves a post-Glasnost trip to the junk yard (in Poland) for the statue, its discover there by someone from Seattle who thought it had historical significance, its transport to the US, and then setting it up in Fremont for lack of a better place. Or something like that. (Google Fremont Lenin statue for more.) In any case, from the meet up at the statue we commenced our “photo walk,” and first explored the immediate surroundings. A lot of the buildings right there seem pretty old and a bit worn – though they have also been modified and updated in interesting and sometimes idiosyncratic ways. Take this bright green wall and door, for example! I was struck by the juxtaposition of the garish green paint and the natural green of the grasses that had sprung up at the base of the wall.

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: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Rocky Islands, Fog, and Surf

May 3, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Brightly sunlit fog blankets rocky islands and high surf, Point Lobos.

The conditions were wildly changeable on this early afternoon at Point Lobos. I had originally been shooting at a more protected location in the park where it was mostly sunny, though with the sun partially obscured by high, thin clouds. After finishing with my shooting in that location I decided to head out toward the more exposed coastline just south of the “Point” itself before leaving, and when I got there I found that the fog back was perhaps only a few hundred yards offshore and was already beginning to obscure some of the rocks.

I hurried a bit to the south to a point where the view might be clear toward Bird Island and the Carmel Highlands, thinking that I might get some long distance shots before the fog closed it or, better yet, as it came in. Sure enough, I arrived at a good spot to work from while the rocks were still clearly visible against the backdrop of the fog, which was brightly lit from behind by the sun. I set up my tripod, mounted a very long lens, and attached the camera, and looked back at the view to find… that the rocks had virtually disappeared as the fog moved in more quickly that I expected. Still, by waiting for momentary clearing in the mist, I was able to make a few very foggy photographs of these large off-shore rocks, almost obscured by the incoming fog.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Detail, Face of The Watchman, Sunset

April 12, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

As this evening approached, I had a plan to be somewhere close to the Zion National Park visitor center above Springdale, where I had seen the nearly full moon rising behind the ridge near The Watchman before sunset the night before. With that timing of the moon in mind, I estimated that on this night, the moon might rise in roughly the same spot but just a bit later. In many ways, the prime time for doing photographs of the full moon is during the golden hour, when there is sufficient ambient light to permit the correct exposure for the moon. But there is no moon in this photograph – so you might wonder what the point is!

I did show up here to photograph the moon, and I did get some photographs of the moon rising over the ridge. But after making a few moon photographs, I began to scan my surroundings a bit more closely, and I saw that the line between the sunset glow and the deeper post-sunset shadows was slowly working its way up the face of the Watchman. So as light/shadow demarcation slowly moved up the face of the cliff below the summit of the Walkman Watchman (!), I turned my camera that direction and made a few exposures of the rugged rocky face as it was lit by the last light of the setting sun.

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G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: bright

Rocks and Surf, Point Lobos

Door Knob, Green Wall, and Grass

Rocky Islands, Fog, and Surf

Detail, Face of The Watchman, Sunset

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