Tag Archives: california

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Meadow’s Edge, Lembert Dome, and Mount Dana

September 26, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Trees grow at the edges of Tuolumne Meadows as Lembert Dome and Mount Dana rise beyond, Yosemite National Park.

This photograph includes a bunch of Tuolumne Meadows icons familiar to most anyone who has spent time there – and I’ve spent a lot of time in and around this area over the years! The first obvious icon is the meadow itself, here near the “lower” section before it turns away from the highway and the Tuolumne River heads off towards Glen Aulin and eventually to the abomination of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The two prominences rising beyond the meadow are both icon. The closer of the two is Lembert Dome, well known to almost all visitors, especially the many who have hiked to its summit to experience the panoramic view of the area. Beyond Lembert Dome is Mount Dana, the second-highest peak in Yosemite. It is located on the eastern boundary of the park right above the entrance at Tioga Pass. For me, there are other icons in this scene as well, though they may be more personal. The lodgepole pine trees silhouetted along the right edge of the frame are found all over the region. The backlit haze, formed as the morning sun just clears the Sierra crest, is a condition that I strongly identify with Tuolumne – and it is a frequent photographic subject.

This simple shot posed some real technical challenges. Perhaps most obviously, the scene includes an extremely large dynamic range between the very bright areas of sunlit haze along the right shoulder of Mount Dana and the dark silhouettes of the backlit trees. In some situations I might make two exposures and blend them in post, but that does not work so well when thing tree trunks and branches stand against the sky. This is a single exposure that just barely contained the brightest tones, and from which I was able to recover just enough detail in the shadows. The composition might seem a bit odd to some, with the dark mass of the silhouetted trees very close to the right edge of the frame. The idea was to create a sense that the trees, or at least an observer among the trees, is looking out from them into the light-filled open space of the meadow.

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Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Northern California

Departure – Space Shuttle Endeavour Flyover #4

September 25, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The space shuttle Endeavour departs after flying over the NASA/Ames Research Center Moffett Airfield.

Although I continued to shoot as the shuttle flew to the south and out of the San Francisco Bay Area, this is the last shot in the sequence that I’ll share. Although many in the ground hoped (dreamed?) that the shuttle might circle around and make a second pass – there had been rumors of a 200 ft. altitude flight down the runway – it seemed pretty likely that this was the end of the show, though what a show it had been!

In some ways I like this photograph the most, even though it certainly does not reveal as much of the detail of the space vehicle or its transport plane. On the other hand, it seems to me to be a bit more evocative of the end of this era in American space flight – the shuttle flies away in into an almost empty sky.

Photographs: Flight

Space Shuttle Endeavour Flyover #3

September 24, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Space Shuttle Flyover – Moffett Field

This is the third in my four-photograph sequence of the Space Shuttle Endeavour and its transport aircraft doing a slow and low pass over the NASA/Ames Research Center Moffett Field Facility in the southern San Francisco Bay Area is it continued on its trip to its new home in Los Angeles.

In this photograph the shuttle has passed by my position and was departing. The angle here gives one of the clearest views of the shuttle, with only the tip of the 747 wing obscuring the area behind the shuttle cockpit. In my view, the light here is a bit better as well, as the shuttle is not quite as directly front-lit as in the previous image in the sequence. This brings up a surprise to all of us who were there to watch the flyover. Everything was set up to suggest that the shuttle would fly down the runway of Moffett Field: fences were set up facing the runway, chairs were lined up in that direction, and the crowd mostly pushed up against the fences. I had spent some time thinking about how to best photograph the event with it being back-lit. As we first caught sight of the shuttle at some distance out over the bay, it seemed to be making a slow turn that would, in fact, bring it down the runway. But then it became apparent that it was not going to do this, but that it instead seemed to be over flying the actual Ames Research Center, located on the far side of the Hangar One facility and behind us as we were set up. At this point I was glad that I had decided to not lug along a tripod since I could easily turn and track it as it followed this unexpected route.

Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Northern California

Space Shuttle Endeavour Flyover #2

September 23, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Space Shuttle Endeavour flyover – Moffett Field

This is the second photograph in my sequence showing the Space Shutter Endeavour, mounted atop its transport aircraft, as it did a slow and low flyover of the NASA/Ames Moffett Field facility in the San Francisco Bay Area on September 21, 2012. I posted the first shot yesterday, made as the craft(s) came over the top of the historic Hangar One facility, still approaching my camera position.

This photograph was made a few seconds later, after it had cleared the old hangar and was almost perpendicular to my position and just about as close as it came to me. The slow passage of the lumbering modified 747 carrying the Endeavour was a stunning and beautiful and magical sight. After three hours of waiting in a crowd along the edge of the runway, the first sight of Endeavor approaching from the distance over San Francisco Bay was exciting. Then the approach seemed to accelerate (though I know it didn’t) as the craft passed over the top of the old hangar and emerged in full view very close by. In a moment it was on its departing path, and within another minute or so it was all over.

Because this image from the sequence shows the shuttle the most clearly, I decided to crop a bit differently to eliminate much extraneous material – which here would have been mostly sky. At some point I’d like to make a large print of this or one of the other images. In this one the details of the shuttle (and the transport craft) are extremely clear in the full size image. In fact, I can see the face of one of the people in the cockpit of the 747. He is looking our way, and I swear there is a smile on his face! :-)

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: california

Meadow’s Edge, Lembert Dome, and Mount Dana

Departure – Space Shuttle Endeavour Flyover #4

Space Shuttle Endeavour Flyover #3

Space Shuttle Endeavour Flyover #2

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