Tag Archives: cliff

Ledge With Fallen Rocks

September 10, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Red cliffs and rocks on a ledge at Park Avenue, Arches National Park.

I made this photograph fairly early in the morning at the Park Avenue area of Arches National Park. While morning might was hitting the walls behind my camera position, the walls in front of me were still in fairly deep shade. However, as the sun rose, its light began to come over the tops of these tall sandstone walls and spill down into the canyon. As the morning wore on, the light/shadow line began to move back closer to this wall, first illuminating the ledge and the fallen rocks in holds and then beginning to highlight edges of some of the cracks in the wall itself.

The Park Avenue area seems like one of the most accessible areas of this park being only a short distance inside the park boundaries and being very close to the roadway. The area is essentially a canyon between two nearly parallel walls of sandstone, often topped with remarkable towers and other features as the canyon descends toward where it opens up into sage brush country below. At this particular hour of this particular morning, as wonderful as that scene was, the light shooting down the canyon was only so-so, so I looked around, put on a long lens, and photographed smaller vignettes of the landscape such as this one.

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, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Rugged Rocks, Soberanes

September 9, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Rugged rocks and surf along the Big Sur coastline at Soberanes Creek.

I’m not certain if this spot has a real name or not, but it seems like it might be something like Soberanes Cove or perhaps Soberanes Bay, since it is at the outlet of the stream that comes down to the Soberanes Canyon from tall, steep coastal hills before entering the Pacific in this rugged, rocky area of the northern Big Sur coast not far below Carmel. Here, as the Coast Highway heads south, it makes a bit of an inland turn to cross the stream and then turns back toward the ocean to rise over another prominence that extends further toward the water. As it does so, a view opens back across the coastal bluff and over this rock-filled section of water toward the rocky coastline.

This was an “interesting” light evening along the coast – in some ways very difficult light, but with short-lived sections of more light that was very beautiful. The fog was hugging the shore line, sometimes extending a bit inland to the coastal hills, cutting off all of the late-day light. But occasionally, where the shore curves inland a bit, as in this cove, the overcast opened up a bit and perhaps even pulled away from the immediately coast and allowed some filtered light to strike the rocks and the water and the shoreline.

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

Muir Beach Overlook, Sutro Tower, Dusk

September 7, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

San Francisco’s Sutro Tower is visible in the distance beyond the Muir Beach Overlook in dusk light, in the Marin Headlands.

A few moments before making this photograph, I had decided that I was done for the evening, as the light was fading very fast and the brilliant and intense sunset and post-sunset colors were draining from the scene. But a turn or two up the road I came upon this overlook, with its view traversing the steep headlands toward the south to where the low hills of San Francisco just outside the Golden Gate were visible, Sutro Tower stood high above these hills, and subtle shades of blue and rose light were still visible.

So we pulled over, and I quickly got set up – again! – and made a few exposures in this dying light. This light is just about as subtle and difficult to photograph as it gets. In fact, I almost didn’t bother! On the scene, it was quite dark – darker than this rendition would suggest. And in that darker dusk, the haze that here partially conceals the San Francisco hills made them almost invisible.

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

Foggy Evening Near Rocky Point

August 28, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening fog obscures the view of the Big Sur coastline near Rocky Point.

This photograph was made on my birthday, believe it or not! We had headed down to the Monterey area for dinner, and had a few extra hours in the late afternoon, so we decided to take a quick jaunt down the coast towards the Rocky Point and (almost) Bixby Bridge area. Of course, a little thing like a birthday celebration isn’t going to make me leave my camera gear at home, so this was a fine excuse to do a little photography along the coast highway.

The light was variable and challenging, largely because it was late in the day and the fog bank was moving right up against the coast. While in a few places it pulled back enough to allow a bit of diffused light to land on the coastal bluffs, beaches, and even the water, in most places the fog line was just a bit inland. As we drove south we were mostly in fog, but occasionally as we passed a bit further from the shoreline to follow the contours of a creek drainage or a bay we found a bit of sun. We finally stopped at this high overlook that provides a view back toward Rocky Point, the peninsula at the upper part of the frame, and I made a few exposures.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: cliff

Ledge With Fallen Rocks

Rugged Rocks, Soberanes

Muir Beach Overlook, Sutro Tower, Dusk

Foggy Evening Near Rocky Point

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