Tag Archives: Cloud

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

Young Trees and Meadow, Tioga Pass

June 10, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Young trees grow along the edge of subalpine meadows at Tioga Pass, Yosemite National Park.

This meadow, right below Tioga Pass – which is among the trees in the saddle in the upper part of the photograph – is something of a magical spot in the Sierra. It is, of course, the highest point that you can drive to in the park, and it sits right on top of the crest of the Sierra Nevada. At just slightly less than 10,000′ of elevation it is verging on the true alpine zone. Because of elevation and location, it is only open for a few months each year between roughly the end of spring and generally some time in November. (For those of us who think of this as it looks in summer, it is sobering to remember that during the majority of the year it is a cold and snow-covered place.) Once you pass over Tioga you begin to descend into the very different world of the high deserts east of the crest. Yes, it still feels like the high country for a while, but within miles you are in hot dry places that are not at all like this alpine terrain.

Oddly, while a thin band of trees crosses the saddle at the pass, much of the area on either side is meadow. This section is on the “Yosemite side,” and is an extension of the many meadows along the Dana Fork of the Tuolumne River which drains this area around Mount Dana. As if to reinforce the idea that this is not as gentle a place as it may appear in the summer, parts of the meadow are filled with the bleached remains of trees struck down by avalanches from the ridge that is out of this photograph to the left. The trail to the summit Mt. Dana, of the second-highest peak of Yosemite (being a few feet shorter than Mt. Lyell), begins by crossing this meadow.

Although I drive over this pass with some frequency, I virtually always stop and get out of the car and look around for at least a moment. On this late-July visit I stayed more than a moment, spending a good portion of an afternoon wandering about the meadow and photographing these young trees, small streams and ponds, fallen trees, some of the more distant mountains, and much else.

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

Big Sur Coastline Near Soberanes Creek, Spring

May 19, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A sunny spring morning along the Big Sur Coast at Soberanes Creek, with fog above the coastal mountains.

This is a spot that is probably familiar to many who have driven down this section of the Big Sur coastline south of Monterey and Carmel, California. To the right, and out of the photograph, is Soberanes Canyon which ascends steeply toward the ridges above Pacific Ocean. A creek flows down the canyon, underneath the coast highway, and then into the ocean.

The foreground bluff looks inviting with its green color and spring flowers. However, I picked up one of the worst cases of poison oak I’ve had on one occasion when I walked across this meadow to photograph the sea stacks and coastline at dusk!

Photographs: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Steel Towers, Night

April 27, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Massive steel towers stand against the night sky at Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.

This is a vertical format photograph of the same series of overhead ship yard structures that I posted in horizontal format recently. As in the other, the illumination comes from very warm (verging on orange-yellow) light from nearby security lights in the shipyard. As a result the extremely hot colors of the metal structures are juxtaposed with the relatively cooler colors of moonlit night sky on this full moon night.

The structures, along the shoreline at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, were apparently used to move heavy ship components between nearby shops and ships along the waterfront. As I understand it, the yard has been out of commission for about a decade and a half at this point, and the huge mechanical/industrial structures are showing the effects via peeling paint and rust.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Yellow Buildings, Fence, and Night Sky

April 26, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Night photograph of abandoned industrial buildings from the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.

The building on the left is sometimes known as the “UFO Building” – not because of anything that might be stored inside, but because of a shadow in the shape of a “flying saucer” that forms on one of its walls. I thought it was the only one until I took this photo in which you might spot another saucer-shaped shadow on the wall of the building at the right.

This scene is not a particularly unusual one at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, a place that is full of old industrial buildings left over from the long ship-building history on this island. Many of the old buildings are now in a state of somewhat arrested development, but they certainly show the signs of age and lack of care – lots of boarded up buildings, peeling paint, warnings about hazards of various kinds, and so forth.

Most of the light in this photograph comes from a bank of strong security lights on the exterior of a more modern nearby building, and the yellow color is a result of the type of lighting that is used. There is also a bit of full moon light in the shadows and on the bit of cloud at the upper right, and this also explains the lighter coloration of the sky. When making night photographs in a place like this, I feel comfortable about not really trying to “capture” an objective reality of the place. To be blunt, that is pretty much impossible. First of all, it is actually so dark in many of these places that it takes a while for your eyes to get used to it. Secondly, there are so many varied light sources with so many different colorations that it is essentially impossible to “color correct” the scene – though I’m not even quite certain what it would mean to do that in a scene that we really can’t “see” with our own eyes.

The idea in my night photography is not often to capture the scene as it “is,” but instead to reflect the way “the camera sees,” a way of seeing that is quite different from our native modes of seeing. Things that occur over long periods of time (exposures measured in minutes) appear in a single frame, sometimes objects lose their definition as shadows move and wind blows, stars create streaks in the sky and passing clouds blur, and the colors are far from “natural.”

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