Tag Archives: drakes

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

Hills and Trees Near Limantour, Drakes Bay

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Hills and Trees Near Limantour, Drakes Bay - Soft sun light on trees and hills above Limantour Beach, as fog bank hovers over Drakes Bay, Point Reyes National Seashore.
Soft sun light on trees and hills above Limantour Beach, as fog bank hovers over Drakes Bay, Point Reyes National Seashore.

Hills and Trees Near Limantour, Drakes Bay. Point Reyes National Seashore, California. August 18,2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Soft sun light on trees and hills above Limantour Beach, as fog bank hovers over Drakes Bay, Point Reyes National Seashore.

Limantour Beach sits along the inner curve of Drakes Bay at the Point Reyes National Seashore north of San Francisco, California, and the area is one of the best-known and most visited in the park. On certain days, the air is clear and the sun is bright and the beach can be warm, and the view includes not only the nearby wildlife and the surf, but the peninsula leading to the tip of Point Reyes and the coast stretching south towards the Marin Headlands and the Golden Gate. One of the first times I visited this place to make photographs it was one of those clear days, and I recall photographing the curve of the Bay leading to the right with the beach and some birds in the foreground. I’ve carried a mental images of how I would like to improve that photograph, and it was with that in mind that I went to Limantour this time.

The weather did not cooperate with that plan. After crossing the ridge between Tomales Bay and Limantour, I could see right away that there was going to be fog along the beach. The shoreline edge of the water still reflected blue sky in a few spots a bit to the south, but at Limantour the fog came a good distance inland from the beach. So as I drove down toward the end of the road, I started looking for some spot that would let me photograph the rounded, grass-covered hills and the bits of forest in sunlight, with the Bay and its fog in the distance. Finding a spot that included all of these things and which made some visual sense was not easy, but with a bit of back-tracking I finally found this spot and made a few exposures.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Home Bay, Drakes Estero

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Home Bay, Drakes Estero - Fog rolls in over Drakes Estero beyond Home Bay, Point Reyes National Seashore
Fog rolls in over Drakes Estero beyond Home Bay, Point Reyes National Seashore

Home Bay, Drakes Estero. Point Reyes National Seashore, California. July 21, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Fog rolls in over Drakes Estero beyond Home Bay, Point Reyes National Seashore.

This little late-July visit to Point Reyes was an opportunity to re-learn a few lessons about going out to make photographs. I had driven up to San Francisco, where my wife was to be engaged in a music performance that would take the full afternoon and evening, with the plan being to drop her off and then drive on over the Golden Gate Bridge and out to Point Reyes. Point Reyes is often a cold and windy place, even in the summer, but this was a very warm period and it looked like the coast might be clear of fog or at least see the fog bank lurking just offshore until the evening. With this in mind, it seemed like it might be a good time to either visit the Limantour Beach area or else hike out towards Drakes Bay.

I should have sensed that things were about to evolve in ways that I had not planned for when, during a brief stop at the Point Reyes visitor center, the rangers announced that the road to Limantour was closed since a fire had just started in the area! With that option gone, I figured that Drakes Bay would be my objective, and I had images of afternoon and evening light on this day of little or no fog. I drove on out to the Estero trailhead where it was, in fact, quite sunny, though a bit windy. I loaded up my camera pack with a few lenses and a tripod, and set out on the trail towards Drakes Head, thinking I might be able to make it there for late afternoon light. As soon as I started hiking I began to see the telltale puffs of incoming fog clouds above me, and soon I came around a bend in the trail to see that the fog had already moved in to my west and over Drakes Bay. Fortunately, I like for, and in most cases I would rather photograph in “interesting” weather than in so-called perfect blue sky weather. At a point where the trail descended to cross a dike at the head of Home Bay, I saw this conjunction of near and far forms, with the distant bluffs under the incoming fog, so I stopped to make a few photographs before moving on. To make a potentially long story a bit shorter, the temperature quickly dropped and the wind picked up to levels that made photography increasingly difficult. I managed to work with one other scene that included a curving snag in front of the bay, but it was already becoming difficult to find a calm moment in the wind to click the shutter. I kept going, finally reaching the trail junction that heads off towards Drakes Head, only to realize that I would never get all the way out there in time to return before dark. Cutting the hike short after a bit more than an hour and a half of hiking, I began to retrace my steps back to the trailhead.

In the end, this is really the only photograph that I came away with – despite carrying that fully loaded camera pack out and back! But this reminded me of a first lesson, namely that it is worth the effort even if I only come back with a single shot that I like. This one, to me, evokes the relative isolation and quiet of this spot in the upper reaches of the calm waters of Drakes Bay, with the fog bank beginning to assemble across the distant bluffs. A second lesson is that sometimes on a photographic quest, it is OK to simply enjoy the surroundings. A practical photographer can remind himself or herself that scouting is a good thing, and that things not photographed this time may well be on a future visit. And a long-time hiker can – and did – remind himself that sometimes it is just fine to leave the camera in the pack and just enjoy the wind and the space.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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, Photographs: Wildlife

Elk Walking Across Grassland

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Elk Walking Across Grassland
Elk Walking Across Grassland

Elk Walking Across Grassland. Point Reyes National Seashore, California. May 30, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tule Elk walking across grassland at Point Reyes National Seashore, California.

I know I promised that the previous one would be the last… but, yes, one more tule elk photograph. (For now? ;-) This one was slightly apart from the others in the group as they began to move off to the right, and I managed to time this photograph so that the others were out of the frame. Beyond that… perhaps not a lot new to say about photographs of tule elk at Point Reyes! :-)

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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

Three Elk, Point Reyes

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Three Elk, Point Reyes
Three Elk, Point Reyes

Three Elk, Point Reyes. Point Reyes National Seashore, California. May 30, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Three tule elk grazing on hills above Drakes Beach at Point Reyes National Seashore, California.

This is one more – and possibly the last – in the series of tule elk photographs that I made at the Point Reyes National Seashore on Memorial Day. A group of perhaps eight or ten bull elk were grazing along the top of the hills above Drakes Bay when we encountered them in beautiful late afternoon light. As soon as I got out with my camera they moved just a bit further away, but still well within photography range.

There is a typical sequence in how I usually photograph creatures such as these. Because I never know how long they will stick around, I begin my just shooting them in any way that seems even somewhat interesting, perhaps muttering to myself, “At least I have tule elk shots in my portfolio now!” But after getting a few “insurance” shots right off the bat, I start to be more selective and more observant. Initially, I’m looking for a variety of interesting individual shots. These might include a single animal separate from the group, perhaps the full group, and perhaps sub-groups of two or three. I also pay a lot of attention to their positions, watching to make sure that faces are visible. (In this shot, the leftmost elk is partially obscured, but because his eyes are still visible and because of the way his antlers align with those of the front animal, on balance I don’t think this is a big problem.) I also watch for distracting elements, and may stop shooting if they are present. For example, the rear end of an elk is bright white and, uh, not the most photogenic part of the beast – so I wait until an animal presenting its backside to the camera either moves out of the frame or rotates into a better position.

I also try to think the same way I think when photographing a group of people. Their faces and eyes are the most important things, with the relationships their positions create among them being a very close second. Here two of the elk are looking almost at me, but slightly past my left shoulder. The third animal seems to be looking more toward the other two, creating a different sort of relationship among the animals. These things are so fleeting that I sometimes don’t see them until they have happened, so I have learned to not be conservative about exposing a lot of frames!

To the extent that I have control over such things, I also like to think about the angle of the light on the subjects. Sometimes you have no choice – you simply have to shoot from where you are. However, with these elk I did have some range of options. They were along a road, and I chose to stop a bit before their position because the light coming from the left would light them in a more dramatic and interesting fashion than if I had gotten closer and shot them with the light right behind me. In addition, I try to look beyond the animals themselves and be aware of how they position themselves against background subjects. This particular shot isn’t a great example, but in others I might wait for the moving animals to position themselves in a place where the background elements relate to them in some interesting way.

With all of this detail, you might get the idea that I’m standing there making a series of careful and logical calculations about how to shoot these guys. That’s not really what happens at all. Much of it turns out to happen in a quick and intuitive and almost subconscious manner “in the moment.” I’ve probably written here before about my belief in the important of “practice” (something I learned from my musical background) when it comes to being able to work and see quickly and effectively.

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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.