Tag Archives: coast

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Post-Sunset Geese

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Post-Sunset Geese
Winter geese fly toward San Joaquin Valley wetlands after sunset

Post-Sunset Geese. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Winter geese fly toward wetlands after sunset

These days photographing wild birds are frequently long. For me they begin about three hours before dawn, when I awake to a (very) early alarm, grab coffee and a bit of food, load my vehicle, and start out on a two-hour drive in the darkness. As I approach my destination the first color is coming to the sky above the Sierra — that is if tule fog doesn’t reduce visibility to 100 feet or so! I arrive a half hour before sunrise, set up camera equipment, and begin to work. At first I may make some landscape photographs, since it is often still too early to handhold the camera for bird photography, but soon the first birds fly up from the ponds. I usually spend the next three hours of so photographing birds and landscape — though the precise time varies depending on the conditions — and then I take a break in the middle of the day. By mid-afternoon I’m back, looking for evening photographic opportunities, and the pace of the work increases as sunset approaches. During the last few minutes of light a lot happens quickly, and then I photograph until the light is gone.

I made this photograph during that late period, following sunset, when lingering light colored the thin clouds above the western mountains. Around sunset there is a period of coming and going by the birds. Birds may rise up from ponds and fly away, or flocks may arrive from distant points and settle in for the night. Often cranes arrive just after sunset. The birds in this photograph are geese, most likely Ross’s geese, approaching the wetland ponds from that western sunset sky.

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 and Amazon.
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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Pasture, Estero, and Drakes Bay

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Pasture, Estero, and Drakes Bay
Looking across pastureland and Drakes Estero toward Drakes Bay and the California coast

Pasture, Estero, and Drakes Bay. Point Reyes National Seashore, California. October 15, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Looking across pastureland and Drakes Estero toward Drakes Bay and the California coast

I have a confession to make regarding Point Reyes. Although it is, relatively speaking, “in my local neighborhood” and I’ve gone there a lot, I have yet to fully wrap my mind around the place to the extent that I feel that I have fully photographed it or fully understand its character. I do have some photographs of the place that I like quite a bit, but when I go there I often find it more difficult to photograph than places like the Sierra, the Big Sur coast, California’s deserts, and similar. I love photographing the ocean, but here the features of the coast are perhaps more subtle, tending more toward beaches and bluffs and bay than to dramatic and rocky coastline. There are hills, but many are rather short, tend to be covered almost completely in forest in many cases, and tend to lack rocky outcroppings. The light can be very interesting, but there is often a fine line between too much and too little sun.

To summarize, I’m still working to figure out my vision of the place. Our most recent visit, in the middle of October during the northern California wildfires, was provided no exceptions to the challenge. There was no fog and the sky was almost clear… except that wildfire smoke often tended to blanket the terrain, producing a sort of yellow quality to the light. Because it is October, most of the green of meadows is long gone, and instead open areas are a kind of muted brown. Yet, I still want to photograph the place, and I know I’ll eventually “get it.” We did spend some time looking for photographs in the park this time, and this lovely inlet from Drakes Estero caught my attention as we traveled out toward the location of the Point Reyes Lighthouse. After we stopped and I looked more closely, I found the old stock fence to be an interesting addition to the photograph.

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

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

Evening, Wildfire Smoke, Tomales Bay

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Evening, Wildfire Smoke, Tomales Bay
Wildfire smoke from northern California wildfires colors the evening sky at upper Tomales Bay

Evening, Wildfire Smoke, Tomales Bay. Near Point Reyes National Seashore, California. October 15, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Wildfire smoke from northern California wildfires colors the evening sky at upper Tomales Bay

In what is perhaps an example of astonishingly bad timing, we were in the region just north of San Francisco for the past few days — near the areas afflicted by the terrible wildfires that have taken lives, destroyed property, and burned over huge swathes of wild land and agricultural areas. The scope of the damage is virtually unprecedented in California, and the events are not yet over as I write this. We were in Petaluma on Friday and most of Saturday, where Patty was to participate in a long-planned wedding of one of her former oboe students. The fires were close enough to Petaluma that breathing masks were provided to those attending the wedding, and at times ash fell from the sky like very light snow flurries.

On Saturday we moved closer to Point Reyes National Seashore. Our original plan had been to spend a couple of days photographing there, but the conditions were not conducive to photography for the most part. We visited the Seashore on Sunday, but the smoke and the naturally brown October conditions, combined with a complete lack of moody for or other clouds left us a bit uninspired. We found a few things to photograph, but we finally decided to just drive north up that coast a ways. We got just past Jenner, where the smoke become even thicker — and we turned around. The smoke was not the only evidence of the fires. Signs were up everywhere — restaurants and similar places — with announcements of fund-raisers, requests for donation, notes from people looking for a place to stay. It was also clear the folks from inland had headed out toward the ocean to try to escape the fires. We left Jenner and headed back toward our lodgings in the Point Reyes area, and just at sunset we arrived at upper Tomales Bay. It was quiet and still as we stopped at a high point from which we could look out over the bay and north toward its mouth. It was still smokey, but here the smoke merely softened the features of the landscape and added color to the sky and the reflecting water.

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

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

Trees, Bluffs, Whalers Cove

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Trees, Bluffs, Whalers Cove
The view across Whalers cove toward tree-covered coastal bluffs and hills

Trees, Bluffs, Whalers Cove. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. July 14, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The view across Whalers cove toward tree-covered coastal bluffs and hills

Point Lobos is the small but beautiful (and often quite over-crowded) state “reserve” located just below Carmel, California at the base of the Monterey Peninsula. I’ve gone there for decades, beginning when I was a child, and I continue to visit, explore, and photograph. These days I’m more likely to go during off-season times, or at least on odd days and at odd hours during the peak tourist season. I made this photograph on a weekday morning, before the tourist traffic built up and on a day when foggy conditions may have discouraged some visitors.

The photograph looks across Whalers Cove, a sheltered inlet along the northern edge of the park which opens toward the shallow bay around the outlet of the Carmel River. Beyond the rocky bluffs immediately above the smooth, kelp-filled waters of the bay forested coastal hills rise. The building is a monastery that gives a nearby beach its name.

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 and Amazon.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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