Tag Archives: county

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Calero Oaks, Fog

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Calero Oaks, Fog
Calero Oaks, Fog

Calero Oaks, Fog. Santa Clara Valley, California. January 67, 2007.© Copyright 2007 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Winter morning fog drifts among ridgetop oak trees, Calero County Park, California

This is an older photograph that I sort of “rediscovered” while going through older files recently. It was due for a bit of additional work, reformatting to fit my current preferred 4:3 print ratio, and the updated web border and text that you see in the online versions of my photographs. (And, to answer the question that comes up from time to time, my fine art prints do not include the text found in the online photographs!)

Although I no longer visit there quite as often, this area became a favorite location of mine a few years ago, especially during the winter months when morning fog frequently burns off and reveals the newly-green winter landscape of the California grassland and oak forests. The photograph was made on one of these very mornings, as I had hiked the familiar trail along the top of this ridge, to find myself on the border between fog in the valleys and clearing on the ridge, with the edge of the fog drifting through these trees and the sun backlighting this misty atmosphere.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Redwood Forest Light

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Redwood Forest Light
Redwood Forest Light

Redwood Forest Light. Muir Woods National Monument, California. March 24, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Misty morning light shines through coast redwood forest, Northern California

On this late-March morning I headed north over the Golden Gate Bridge, hoping to photograph the trillium bloom at Muir Woods National Monument. Every year this event seems to sneak up on me, and I often just barely catch it before the bloom ends or even miss it. I had heard that the flowers were already in bloom a week earlier, so I wasn’t sure what I would find – but I did get the chance to photograph these flowers that seem to announce the arrival of spring in the redwood forest.

There is a particular trail at this National Monument where I usually go to find the trillium flowers. They seem to like the slightly more open light of this hillside trail, and as I ascend it I usually find quite a few of the flowers… if I arrive at the right time. Every so often I remind myself to look in the other direction, too, since there the hillside drops off steeply, running all the way down to the creek at the bottom of the canyon. The elevated perspective provides a somewhat unusual view into the forest. One challenge of shooting redwoods is that so often you are angling the camera/lens up, and consequently have to deal with various challenges including bright sky appearing in the scene and the effects of converging perspective line. But from this trail it is possible to point the camera horizontally and shoot right into the forest itself, far above the base of the trees down in the canyon below.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Canyon Light, Big Sur

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Canyon Light, Big Sur
Canyon Light, Big Sur

Canyon Light, Big Sur. Pacific Coast Highway, California. April 14, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A solitary tree stands on a hillside at the base of a rugged canyon filled with morning light and haze

I have driven past this canyon many times, even stopping to hike up into it on more than one occasion. I’m usually there in the morning, when the early sun is just clearing the top of the high ridge beyond the canyon, and backlight streams down into the canyon, sometimes so bright that it is almost impossible to look up into it.

This was one of those mornings. As I got to the Monterey Peninsula I was initially surprised by the amount of haze in the air, since it was supposed to be – and actually was! – a very windy day. This was good news, though, since I love atmosphere that is not crystal clear. A few fog clouds were trying to form over some of the higher hills, but mostly the air was just filled with this semi-opaque, luminous haze that gave form to the light passing through it. As I arrived at this spot I looked to my left out of habit and first thought that it might be too hazy to produce a photograph that showed the faint details that I was interested in. But since I was there and this was a lot more interesting than the view out over the ocean, I stopped and took a look, soon finding a composition that placed the solitary tree silhouette near the bottom of the frame and anchored the scene, the rest of which was very atmospheric and subtle.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Trees and Pond, Winter Morning

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Trees and Pond, Winter Morning
Trees and Pond, Winter Morning

Trees and Pond, Winter Morning. San Joaquin Valley, California. January 21, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A row of winter trees stands along a frost-rimmed San Joaquin Valley pond

To me, this photograph looks deceptively warm, perhaps due to the warm color of some of the light and the distant fields beyond the trees. The truth is that it was freezing cold! The temperature was in the upper 20’s (cold for Californians!) and the air was damp as it always is this time of year in these marshy valley lowlands and there was thick frost on the ground.

We were here to photograph migratory birds once again. At this location, an official wildlife refuge, a perimeter road circles the place, and it is pretty much our routine to circle it more than once on our visits. The first pass is typically right around dawn, as was the case this time, and often seems to be in thick or – if we are lucky – clearing fog. Later circuits often reveal changing light, thinning fog, different birds, and warmer temperatures – until a final trip around the loop usually concludes with us shooting into the dusk period until there is no longer enough light for photography. Near one corner of the loop there is a parking area, an observation deck, and nearby short trail. (Hiking is not permitted in most of the refuge, as people hidden in cars are apparently perceived to be less threatening by the birds.) When we stop here I almost always do at least a momentary transition from wildlife photographer to landscape photographer and make a few photographs that don’t include birds at all. This pond and the row of bare trees on a levee along one side have attracted my attention almost every time I visit here, and seem to suggest to me something about the vast flat agricultural terrain of this part of the valley.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.