Tag Archives: county

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Burned Forest, Evening

August 14, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening light on an eastern Sierra Nevada forest recovering from a recent wildfire.

This spot is in Mono County along highway 395 not far from June Lake, and it is a spot that I’ve had my eyes on for some time. As a person who was brought up in the “Smokey the Bear” era, when wildfires were thought to be entirely a bad thing, it took me a while to come to terms with the knowledge that such fires are a natural and necessary element. I understood this logically before I understood it aesthetically, and I struggled for some time with the idea that places where fires have occurred can be seen as sites of rebirth rather than as destruction and desolation.

I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity and the right light to photograph this burn area for a couple of years now. I pass by fairly often, but it has always been at the wrong time of day or at a time when I could not afford to stop. However, as is often the, unexpected coincidences caused me to be here just before sunset as the light turned golden in mid-August. Ironically, part of the cause was… a forest fire in Yosemite! Up in the Tuolumne area, the afternoon air had turned smokey and the light had taken on the sort of brownish color that forest fire smoke can create. This light was not inspiring me, so I thought that I’d drive over the pass and head south a short distance on highway 395 to see if I could find more interesting lighting. As I traveled south from Lee Vining I happened to notice the turn-off for West Portal Road, which heads out in the general direction of Mono Craters. I took this road and spent some time poking around, eventually making a few exposures in the area called Aeolian Buttes, and then returned to the main highway a bit south of where I had originally left the road.

As it happened, this choice dropped me onto 395 at a place where I could see this burned area just a bit further down the road. The sun was not far from dropping behind the Sierra crest, so I figured this could be my chance to give it a try. I found a spot where the late afternoon light was warming the color of the summer-dried grasses and some white flowers grew among the burned trees, and I had perhaps 15 minutes to work before the sun dropped behind the peaks.

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

Kelp Bed and Fog, Pacific Ocean

August 9, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Kelp bed and fog off the coast of Point Lobos State Reserve.

I haven’t posted one of my “minimalist seascapes” in a while, so here is a new one. The photograph was made on a quiet day at Point Lobos a few weeks ago – at least it started out quiet with fog and somewhat gentle surf. A certain amount of post-processing was done on this image in order to get the particular misty effect and somewhat leaden quality of light and color.

While the photograph was made at Point Lobos, something similar could have been produced at many places along the California coast on a day like this one – the image is completely devoid of the typical elements of Point Lobos photography.

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

California Ground Squirrel

July 28, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Three photographs of a ground squirrel along a shoreline trail at Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

Since I don’t quite think these photographs warrant separate posts, consider this to be my first three-for-one offer on the blog – three photographs in one post! I had taken a break from seascape photography on my recent visit to Point Lobos State Reserve south of Carmel and at the upper limit of what we might think of as the Big Sur coast. I was at the top of a bluff overlooking the “point of the sea wolves,” the actual spot that gives this park its name, and was trying to photograph the rather small number of pelicans that were coming past from time to time. (This was an odd day for photographing pelicans – fortunately that wasn’t the main reason I was at Point Lobos. Ten or fifteen minutes would go by with no pelicans at all… and then a giant flock or 30 or more would cruise by and be gone.)

So, I was parked at a spot along this trail on top of the bluff, waiting for interesting birds to come by when a couple stopped to look, too. As they stood there, this squirrel emerged from the brush and came right up to them – obviously not the wildest wild animal around. (Later I had to chase it off the bench that my camera bag was sitting on.) Since there weren’t any bird in photography range and there was a very close squirrel, and since I was standing there with a 100-400mm zoom on my camera, I figured I might as well get some close up shots for my gallery. This seemingly well-trained squirrel (is there a squirrel modeling school somewhere?) went quickly through a delightful sequence of poses: first all fours on the ground and looking quizzically to my right; then up on hind feet to eat a seed; and finally lowering the paws holding the seed to look ever so cutely at something to the right.)

So, now I have squirrel photographs.

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

Rocks and Fog, Point Lobos

July 27, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A rocky peninsula drops into the ocean on a foggy morning at Point Lobos State Reserve.

On this morning it was foggy and drizzling at Point Lobos and there was a surprising amount of surf for a summer morning. When I arrived shortly after the park opened, there were few other people about. With the moving water and the low light conditions, I decided that this was a good time to do some work with long daytime exposures, so I got out my 9-stop neutral density filters and went about looking for compositions.

After shooting down closer to the water in the cove to the left of these rocks, I wandered up a trail along the shoreline that took me to a point that was a bit higher above the water. As I looked back I saw that the rocks that defined the cove that I had been shooting appeared to head straight out into the water towards a distant peninsula and then submerge – a rather different take on this feature.

By using this filter I was able to get an eight-second exposure in this light. Longer would have been better, but the light was beginning to come through the fog a bit and I didn’t have much choice. With an exposure this “short” I had to be a bit careful about timing the shots, trying to get the right amount of water breaking over the rocks.

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