Tag Archives: clouds

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

Tioga Lake, Late Spring

February 22, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Late spring at icebound Tioga Lake below Tioga Pass with Mammoth Peak and the Kuna Crest beyond in afternoon light.

I made and shared a slightly different photograph of this scene last summer, but when I did my annual end-of-year traverse of the year’s raw files I returned to the original set of images and wondered how I missed this one. In a lot of ways it is similar to the one I selected earlier, though the foreground light and shadow patterns are a bit different and, more importantly, I like the position of the clouds in this one more than what I had in the original. So, there are now two versions of this scene floating around…

After several fairly dry years in California, the winter of 2009-10 produced much more precipitation, as rain in the lowlands and as snowpack in the Sierra. Because of the heavier snow, Tioga Pass opened just a bit later than average, and when it opened there was still a lot of snow in the high country. Since this afforded a rare chance to cross the Yosemite Sierra in conditions not usually seen by drivers I made it a point to get up there as soon as the road opened.

On the drive there was snow along almost the entire length of Tioga Pass Road, and in many places it looked more like winter than like spring. At the same time, it was spring, and the melting of the snowpack was fully underway. While lakes like Tioga Lake, as seen in this photograph, were still ice-covered… the ice was thinning quickly, and everywhere the melting snow was creating creeks and cascades. The high country, especially at the elevation of the road, was filling with water – water in ponds, water in overflowing lakes, water in rivers, water in cascades and waterfalls. I was waterfalls along the road in places where I had not even suspected that there were creeks!

This photograph shows Tioga Lake, just east of and below Tioga Pass, the eastern entrance to Yosemite. The pass itself is in the low saddle just above the meadow ascending the hill at the end of the lake. Beyond, and inside the park, is massive Kuna Crest with white, snow-capped Mammoth Peak in full sun at the right end of the ridge.

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Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

Richardson Bay and Tiburon, San Francisco Bay Morning Haze

February 21, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The San Francisco Bay and the haze covered East Bay beyond the waters of Richardson Bay.

When I headed over the Golden Gate on this early February winter morning I intended to end up photographing redwoods or along the coast north of San Francisco in the morning before heading south to go back home by midday. I ended up getting distracted by very interesting shooting conditions in the Marin Headlands of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and by the time I finished there I didn’t have enough remaining time to carry through on my original plans. But I did have a little time left, so I headed up to this spot along a ridge above Marin City where I know of a great view out over Richardson Bay, the Tiburon Peninsula, Angel Island, the Bay, past fog-shrouded Oakland, and on to the East Bay Hills.

This is a long lens landscape shot, for several reasons. First, the somewhat longer lens – though 159mm isn’t all that long – compresses distance a bit, both bringing Oakland’s downtown buildings a bit “closer” and foreshortening the very large distances a bit. It also lets me “edit” out some potentially distracting elements close to my shooting position and limit the scope of the image to just those elements that I wanted to include.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge

February 13, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Black and white photograph of the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge silhouetted against San Francisco Bay morning haze and the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge.

A week ago I posted a few other photographs from this early morning winter visit to the upper reaches of the Marin Headlands, from which I photographed the bridges of the San Francisco Bay, backlit by early sun and partially obscured by a low layer of fog and haze. Since I am not fond of adding poetic (or pseudo-poetic) titles to my photographs, preferring to let them say whatever they have to say on their own, I have resisted the temptation to call this one “The Three Towers.” ;-)

The dark shape in the foreground that dominates the frame is, of course, the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. Shooting it in this light is trickier than it might seem like it should be. The light coming from beyond, reflected and amplified by water and haze, is very bright – almost hard to look at directly. So the west side of the bridge is deeply shadowed. I like the dark and stark shape of the tower here – as opposed to the more familiar photographs front or side lit by late afternoon or evening light – but the trick is to keep just a bit of detail in that nearly black tower.

The scene posed another technical issue, though it probably isn’t visible in this small version. As the sun comes up and heats the atmosphere, and as wind blows (and it was windy on this morning!) there is a lot of atmospheric turbulence. Normally you wouldn’t notice this at all, but when you shoot with a long lens and enlarge the image you quickly see that sharp edges and fine lines take on an almost “painterly” quality as the atmosphere shimmers, much in the manner of a mirage.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Central Valley Sky, Winter

January 30, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Thin winter clouds drift above farmland, Central Valley, California.

Photographing these beautiful winter clouds above the California Central Valley near the Cosumnes River between Stockton and Sacramento involved a certain amount of luck. For the most part it had been an extremely foggy morning – so foggy that at a few points early in the day I simply couldn’t find anything to shoot. Eventually the light began to filter down through the tule fog and I had some good luck shooting further up the valley at the Cosumnes River Wildlife Preserve.

At a certain point as the fog begins to thin it goes through a phase that is not so photographically compelling. The very thick fog can be quite interesting, and the light can be very special just as the sun starts to force its way through the fog as it starts to clear. But they there is a period when it is sort of sunny and sort of foggy, and but perhaps lacks the best aspects of each of the two conditions. That is how it was at about the time I left the Preserve and started back down the valley on my drive home.

Much earlier in the morning I had visited this side road near a bend in the Cosumnes River, so I decided to try it again since it was only slightly out of my way on the return drive. I drove slowly all the way to the end of the side road – to where it runs into the levee at the river – and then turned around to start back. I saw lots and lots of waterfowl, including impressive sandhill cranes and beautiful white egrets, but they were all too far from the road or in areas that didn’t provide the right kind of background. Near these flooded fields I stopped to consider trying to photograph some of the birds, changed my mind, and instead decided to see what I could do with these buildings, the flooded fields, and the sky. It was my luck that this final stop coincided with the near clearing of the fog and the appearance overhead of these wonderful clouds.

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