Tag Archives: clouds

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Evening Fog, Pacific Ocean

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Evening Fog, Pacific Ocean
Fog begins to appear near dusk along the Pacific Coast below San Francisco.

Evening Fog, Pacific Ocean. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Fog begins to appear near dusk along the Pacific Coast below San Francisco.

Today’s photograph is… quiet… and peaceful. While the world at large is never completely that way, I suppose that the intensity of the craziness has been dialed back at least a bit during the last week or so, and I’m glad for that.

I’ve long had a fondness for this “big landscape with horizon” photographs that don’t really feature any single, central element. Instead they hope to evoke the experience of being quietly in such a place and slowly taking all of that in. The lack of an identifiable primary visual focus is perhaps even the point. I had headed over the hills to the closest section of the coast on this spring day, and as dusk came on the fog gradually began to appear again above the quiet sea.

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.

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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Sandstorm Rising

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Sandstorm Rising
Clouds from a desert sandstorm rise above Death Valley National Park sand dunes.

Sandstorm Rising. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Clouds from a desert sandstorm rise above Death Valley National Park sand dunes.

Today I am sharing yet another of the Death Valley photographs from my spring 2013 visit when, among other things, I had a couple of opportunities to photograph in sandstorm conditions. Like many photographers I tend to photograph this location early in the morning and late in the evening, when the light is softer and subtle colors emerge in the fascinating shapes of the dunes. But the stark midday light can be interesting too, especially when the light is softened and diffused by a dust-filled atmosphere.

My roots are in black and white film photography, and I still find myself leaning back in that direction fairly often. I feel that in many cases monochrome can let us see the subject more in terms of shapes, textures, tones — less as an attempt at literal representation of the subject and more about how we choose to interpret it. With monochrome we explicitly begin by accepting an interpretation that cannot be objectively accurate, since the world is (almost) never monochromatic. In addition, we have more freedom do things during the post-processing stages (as we did in the film era) that we probably could not get away with in color, and the result still register as being “true.”

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.

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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Dunes, Sandstorm, and Mountains

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Dunes, Sandstorm, and Mountains
A Death Valley sandstorm builds above sand dunes, obscuring distant desert mountains.

Dunes, Sandstorm, and Mountains. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A Death Valley sandstorm builds above sand dunes, obscuring distant desert mountains.

Once again I am discovering how many promising photographs get left behind when I first assess them shortly after making the photographs… and how valuable it is to revisit the original files later on. I typically do a year-end review of the previous year’s raw files, but even then I miss a few. So I suppose that there is at least one good thing to come from the limits on photography in the pandemic era — the extra time available to go back and take a look at the old files with new eyes.

For the past week or two I have been digging into photographs from the late winter and early spring of 2013. These images include Death Valley photographs from that year’s annual visit to the park. On this day the ubiquitous Death Valley winds had risen, and a sandstorm was developing above the upper valley, blowing sand and dust southward toward these dunes. The wind was gusty, and rather than filling the atmosphere with uniform haze, tall clouds of dust and sand rose high into the sky as they traversed the landscape.

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.

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

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

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Dunes, Sandstorm, Distant Mountains

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Dunes, Sandstorm, Distant Mountains
Distant mountains are barely visible beyond sandstorm clouds and desert dunes.

Dunes, Sandstorm, Distant Mountains. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Distant mountains are barely visible beyond sandstorm clouds and desert dunes.

This was not the most intense sandstorm I have experienced and photographed — I have some interesting stories about those! — but it was a pretty good one. Driving down the east side of Death Valley near the turnoff to Beatty, the winds were whipping up dust and sand to the west over the valley, blotting out the view of the great flats beyond the dunes and almost obscuring the more distant Cottonwood mountains.

I employed some of my typical strategies for photography in sandstorm conditions. While I will, on occasion, venture into the thick of the storm, dealing with the winds and blowing dust while trying to make photographs is something that you mostly want to avoid. (Going against that imperative can sometimes produce good photography, but it can also destroy equipment. Be careful!) Here I worked from the fringe of the strong winds and blowing sand, photographing into and across the maelstrom with a very long lens.

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.

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