Tag Archives: california

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Wildlife

A Seal’s Life, Part II

Image Leave a comment
A Seal's Life, Part II
A group of elephant seals lounging on a Southern California beach.

A Seal’s Life, Part II. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A group of elephant seals lounging on a Southern California beach.

If you thought that the earlier photograph on a young elephant seal was the only one in the series… you were wrong! I have several more to share before I’m done. To be honest, photographing this group was almost an after-thought. We were passing though the area on our way to another destination and, well, why not stop? Even though we’ve been there many times before. So we pulled out for a break and walked the fancy trail along the edge of the bluff to a point where I could overall a big group of these big critters on the beach.

Elephant seal are, of course, impressive — mostly, but not entirely, in good ways. (About that not entirely part, their manners, uh, don’t exactly conform to what we were likely taught as children. There are a lot of gross noises, some random fighting, and more. Oh, and have you heard about the smell?) For animals that are reportedly skillful hunters and quite graceful swimmers, on land they look awkward and, to be honest, like large, lazy lumps of seal flesh. But the view we get of them is hardly the whole story, since we generally only can watch them where they haul out onto beaches… where they nap, lie about, make noises, flip sand on their backs, occasionally claim their bit of beach territory, and generally don’t do much at all — saving up their energy, I imagine, for the important work of hunting once they get back in the water.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Last Light, Mono Lake

Image Leave a comment
Last Light, Mono Light
The shoreline of Mono Lake, a cone, mountains, and the last light of an early Autumn evening.

Last Light, Mono Lake. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The shoreline of Mono Lake, a cone, mountains, and the last light of an early Autumn evening.

The views from this section of Mono Lake have long intrigued me. I think it may be because I frequently arrive here late in the day from the north, and especially in the autumn it is pretty common for me to come down the grade from Conway Summit at just about sunset. On quite a few occasions I’ve raced the sunset to get there in time for the last light, occasionally with the rising full moon in the scene. By now I have a few particular locations where I like to pull over and set up on these lovely evenings.

This view looks along the shore of the upper “corner” of the lake just off of US 395. The shoreline undulates here now that the waterline has dropped from historic levels. (I’m fairly sure that the foreground peninsula was previously under water.) A second peninsula extends into the lake from the Black Point formation, and beyond that lies Negit Island. In the distance, beyond the far shore of this huge lake, lie desert mountains, catching the final sunlight of the day in this photograph.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Sierra Foothills, White Mountains

Image Leave a comment
Sierra Foothills, White Mountains
A long view from the Buttermilks in the Sierra Nevada eastern foothills to the crest of the distant White Mountains.

Sierra Foothills, White Mountains. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A long view from the Buttermilks in the Sierra Nevada eastern foothills to the crest of the distant White Mountains.

Recently I was once again pondering how the way we approached the Sierra Nevada at first affected our overall perceptions of the character of the Range of Light. As I have noted before, during the first decades of my relationship with these mountains I approached from the west, crossing semi-coastal mountains, crossing the agricultural Central Valley, rising gradually into oak-grasslands and eventually to conifer forest, and only much later finally arriving in the “High Sierra” world of open meadows and alpine peaks. Contrast this with the experience of those approaching from the east, where the range presents a very long “wall” of peaks that towers above high desert, in places rising by as much as 10,000 feet above that dry landscape.

This photograph is, probably obviously, one that focuses on that eastern part of the Sierra. But here I look away from the Sierra Nevada, past the rugged and “barren” terrain of dry hills at the base of the range, across the expanse of Owens Valley, and toward the (also dry) peaks of the White Mountains. To put it plainly, you won’t see anything like this on the west side!

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Color and Sierra Crest

Image Leave a comment
Autumn Color and Sierra Crest
Early autumn color in a landscape of rock and forest below the east side of the Sierra Nevada crest.

Autumn Color and Sierra Crest. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early autumn color in a landscape of rock and forest below the east side of the Sierra Nevada crest.

Thoughts of autumn have begun over the past few weeks. I can imagine all sorts of reasons. As I have written, that mysterious “something” that indicates that the seasons are changing appeared recently, right on schedule. (I attribute it to changes in light, the angle of the sun, the time of sunset and sunrise, and perhaps a few other things.) Here in the West, it may also be triggered by an intense desire to see the end of the hot, dry conditions that plague us during this time of global climate change. I miss cooler weather!

This, of course, gives rise not only to ideas about where to go to photograph this year’s color, but also to reexamination of autumn photography from prior years. This photograph comes from a few years back, during the relatively wet interval between the previous five-year drought and the current drought. I made my first fall color visit in very early October that year, hitting a few of my favorite places and checking out a few new ones that are less known. This location is more the former than the latter, a very large system of canyons draining the eastern Sierra above Bishop, full of rivers, forests, and plenty of rocky terrain leading to the crest of the range.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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