Tag Archives: fog

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

Beach and Bluffs, Evening

August 5, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening light and fog along the Pacific coast north of Santa Cruz, California

On day two of my “return to California photography” we drove across the coastal mountains to the Pacific Coast Highway north of Santa Cruz, California looking for some combination of evening golden hour (or even blue hour, but that’s a different photograph) light, incoming coastal fog, beach, bluffs, and ocean. This area is, of course, pretty familiar to me at this point, so we hit a few of my favorites: a small beach on a side road where wind surfers congregate, a place where a creek comes down to the ocean from the coastal hills, a particular bluff where I know that gulls and pelicans will often fly past very close, another beach where the pelicans often stop to rest, and more.

This beach is at one of the low spots along this highway, which often alternates between climbing to the tops of the bluffs and descending to beaches at major river and creek valleys. On previous visits I have caught a glimpse of this particular angle of view, which only appears momentarily along a section of the road with no real turnouts. I have stopped before, admired the line of bluffs extending north along the coast, but mostly not managed to make a photograph that I like. So as we passed this spot again I looked again… and liked what I saw – soft, warm golden hour light gently lighting the atmosphere thick with moisture from the incoming fog and nicely shaped waves running up on the beach as those bluffs faded into the distant mist.

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

Egret Quartet

July 16, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A quartet of egrets on a foggy morning in a green late-winter pasture in California’s San Joaquin Valley.

This gang of egrets was politely waiting for me near the far corner of a wildlife refuge that I had visited on the last-winter morning, hoping to photograph (mostly) geese and cranes. The geese and cranes were a bit shy, and as I worked my way around the refuge’s perimeter road I wasn’t finding a lot of opportunities to photograph them. I could hear them, especially the sandhill cranes, but they seemed to be too far off, hidden by fog, or behind the tules. But I wasn’t in a hurry, so I took my time, stopping and watching and listening. By this later point in the season the initial astonishment at the huge numbers of birds had worn off a bit, and rather than jumping out of the car to photograph huge flocks of birds, as if they were the first and only flocks in the world, had given way to a bit more patience.

It had appeared that it would be a clear morning as I drove toward this location, but just moments before I arrived – a bit before dawn – the cool and damp air did begin to form some fog. This was fine with me, as I’d rather have a bit of interesting foggy atmosphere than have perfectly clear sky. But the fog was relatively short-lived – not like the midwinter fogs that can cover these places for days on end. By the time I finally worked my way over to this spot the sun was starting to break through and the fog was thinning. Because of their stark white color, lone egrets are often easy to spot from a good distance, and four of them clustered together were impossible to overlook. As I edged up closer to them, remaining in my vehicle so as not to spook them, they simply stood there, occasionally swinging their heads one way or another. Before I could make this photograph I first had to wait for an unruly band of red-winged blackbirds to depart, and then I waited for the four birds to move their heads in what seemed to me to be interesting directions.

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

Launch For Hire Building

July 14, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

The “Launch For Hire” building, docks, and Tomales Bay as remnants of morning fog drift above the water

I was in this area back in early February, attempting to make it out to Point Reyes by dawn – but various things delayed me, including distractions along the way, and I ended up along the shoreline of Tomales Bay at sunrise. The bay is long and thin and seems quite peaceful, but Californians often remember that it is there because it is the junction between the continental plate and the Pacific plate, otherwise known as the San Andreas earthquake fault. The land I stood on to make this photograph is gradually heading northward and out to sea relative to the more distant land across the bay in the upper part of the frame. Periodically, this must briefly be a distinctly non-peaceful place when that fault lets go!

But on this morning it was quiet. The winter season and cold (literally freezing) temperatures ensured that few other people were there yet, though visitors to Point Reyes National Seashore come all year long and would begin to arrive a bit later in the morning. The light was a study in contrasts. To my right from the camera position was the morning sun, barely rising above the Marin hills and shining from behind some thin and clearing fog. I also made some photographs in that direction and you would hardly guess they were shot from the same place at the same time, since the backlit atmosphere was so bright and luminous than only silhouettes appear. But in this direction only a bit of that fog is seen, in a thin layer just above the water near the far hills, and the foreground is completely clear. There is a group of these piers here, and they extend a good distance into the shallow waters of the bay. I cannot tell what, if anything, the building whose full sign reads “Launch for Hire” is used for today, though its form and the reflections underneath seemed like a good subject for a photograph.

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

Winter Sky, Point Reyes

June 30, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Mist and spray from high surf along Point Reyes Beach beneath winter sky

I made this simply, even minimalist, photograph on the same day that I made the Tomales Bay photographs that I recently posted. After shooting at dawn along Tomales Bay I continued on into the Seashore. Since I didn’t have any particular goal in mind – sometimes it is great to shoot that way! – I first headed up a side road that I had not investigate before, and followed it to its end high on a ridgeline. From there I descended and headed out to the area of the park that is essentially a refuge for a large population of tule elk. There were tons of them and, oddly, the large number of them made photographing them less interesting than I expected.

Many of the elk were grazing along a high bluff overlook the ocean, and as I photographed the animals I kept looking out along the long beach toward the Point, barely visible through the morning mist and sea spray along the edge of the water. I intentionally excluded anything that was not blue from the photograph – even the curving strand of beach at lower left is blue from the haze. A clear day like this is somewhat unusual at Point Reyes, a place that is often fogged in, and the brilliant light filling the immense sky was a sight that I don’t recall seeing here before.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: fog

Beach and Bluffs, Evening

Egret Quartet

Launch For Hire Building

Winter Sky, Point Reyes

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