Tag Archives: fog

Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Forest Ridge, Fog

February 18, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Ocean fog overruns forest-covered ridges in Marin County, California

I made this photograph on a very cold, cloudy, gray, and by most people’s standards, fairly miserable day! It was a morning of murky atmosphere, high clouds blocking the light, and thick ocean fog along the coast and into the coastal forests – and it had stymied most of my attempts to find the sorts of photographs I was looking for. I finally decided to just look around – we call this “scouting” – and I eventually ended up in the hills near Mount Tamalpais State Park in Marin County, where I thought I might get above this gray atmosphere. I sort of succeeded, rising above the coastal fog, but the overall haziness and the high clouds were still a factor.

As I drove up the ridge and past an area of open meadows, the view opened back down towards lower hills with fog swirling round them. The hills were mostly submerged in the fog, but in one area the tops of ridges managed to poke through, though at times they, too, were covered. This is one of a small set of photographs I made here before moving on. In order to get the mood that I wanted to evoke from this subject, I made several particular choices in post production. One was to desaturate the colors quite a bit but to not go all the way to a purely black and white rendition, so the dark areas retain the slightly blue-green coloration of the forest. I also did some work with curves to produce the balance of light and dark that I was looking for.

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: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Tomales Bay Building, Morning Fog

February 12, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Detail of a Tomales Bay shoreline building with morning fog along nearby hills

Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I am fortunate to be within a few hours driving distance of the Point Reyes National Seashore, so I shoot there fairly regularly. I had a free morning on this early February day, so I decided to drive up that way with the intention of being there for dawn. I didn’t quite make it for the actual sunrise – at that point I was driving through foggy redwood forest – but I got to the road that travels along the edge of Tomales Bay on the way to the “point” shortly after sunrise, and as the fog was clearing from over the water and the hills.

This structure is what I think of as the “Launch for Hire” building, since a very large size with that announcement has been painted on both sides. I haven’t stopped to photograph here much at all in the past, but the early light was interesting on this morning – foggy to the north toward the entrance to Tomales Bay, and backlight fog and trees to the east – so I spent a bit of time photographing along here. I shot the building from both sides – the side facing into the “golden hour” early morning light, and the deeply shaded backside of the building with the very bright morning light and thinning fog beyond. In the latter case, there was a glow in the windows of this building, on pilings out over the water, from the light coming into its interior through windows on the far side facing the rising sun.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Winter Fog, Ridges

February 3, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Winter fog wraps around the lower slopes of Marin County mountains along the Pacific coast north of San Francisco

This was the sort of day of photography that I have learned to accept as something that comes with the territory. I was up hours before dawn, and on the road shortly after that, with an idea of photographing in the redwoods of Marin County north of the Golden Gate, or perhaps of photographing along the coast where high surf was predicted. As I got on the road I noticed that there was some fog about, which is fine as I often like photographing in such conditions. Nearly an hour later as the time of sunrise approached, I noticed that the day was not becoming light very fast and, in fact, things were looking quite gray. I crossed the Golden Gate in fog, stopped briefly on the north side of the bridge, and wasn’t able to see much of anything. I continued on to the Muir Woods area and parked. As I sat in the car, it became clear that there wasn’t going to be much in the way of compelling light here, either. (I’m not one to insist on incredible light, so when I say that the light wasn’t promising… I mean it!) I soon decided to leave and go up the coast a ways. As I drove I figured out that the murky light was the result of a combination of thick coastal fog, generally hazy conditions where it wasn’t foggy, and above it all the high clouds of a passing weather front.

While finding myself in conditions like these doesn’t exactly make me happy – who wouldn’t prefer beautiful light and easy subjects!? – I don’t get upset about it any more. In order to find really special subjects and light one must simply go “out there” a lot to increase the odds. Special things are special at least partially because they are not ordinary, and we cannot expect stupendous conditions on every outing. I shoot enough to have had the good fortune to almost regularly encounter truly wonderful conditions and to have some idea how to work with conditions that are merely good. But along with this good, I also have to accept the possibility – certainty, actually – that there will be some days when it seems like nothing happens. This was one of those days. I enjoyed being out and about, and I explored a few places that I had not visited before. I gave up on some ideas, tried others, and when the light was clearly not going to be good in the forest, I headed for the coast. When that didn’t work, I headed into the hills. It was what it was! Eventually, I ended up at the Mount Tamalpais State Park high in the Marin hills, and around one bend in the road the view opened to the west and I could see the ocean of fog bumping up against ridges below me and stretching on out over the ocean – so I stopped and made the only photographs of the day that worked. It wasn’t a great day… but it was still a good day!

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

Five Birds, Marsh

January 31, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Five birds take flight above a foggy marsh

I’ll be honest and admit that this photograph emerged from a group of exposures that resulted from operator error! While dealing with some complicated and varying exposure issues that I won’t explain here, I switched from photographing one sort of subject to photographing another… but left the settings for the former in place as I shot the latter. My first thought when I went through my files initially was that every one of these exposures would likely deserve to be deleted. But because I’ve been working with motion blur, longer exposures, camera motion, and so forth recently, I figured I might as well take a look and see what I could do with the images.

Essentially, I ended up using a shutter speed that was much lower than I intended and overexposing, creating very high key images. For these reasons and because I was panning to track the small group of birds, almost all distinct detail is gone from the scene with the exception of the birds. The tule-covered islands in the marsh above which the birds are flying barely hold their shape – enough, I think, to imply what they are but certainly not enough to provide any real detail.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: fog

Tomales Bay Building, Morning Fog

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Winter Fog, Ridges

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Five Birds, Marsh

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

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