Tag Archives: fog

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Tomales Bay Hills, Morning

September 18, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Early morning light on clearing fog and mist in the hills above Tomales Bay, California

I had headed up towards Point Reyes National Seashore, which is not at all far from Inverness, very early on the cold February morning. I allowed myself to be distracted by other sights on the drive up, and so I did not make my planned arrival on Drakes Bay for sunrise. The sun came up as I drove along the shores of quiet Tomales Bay. Since that’s where I was and the light was interesting, I gave up my early morning plans for shooting along the beach inside the park and instead stopped here to photograph instead. When I got out of my car, I was surprised by how cold it was. It isn’t unusual to have sub-freezing morning temperatures in parts of the Bay Area this time of year, but it is unusual when that happens right along the ocean shoreline.

This photograph might serve as proof of my eligibility for membership in the “Shooting Straight Into the Light” school of photography. (No one who has seen a few of my photographs will be surprised by that, I expect! I’m a big fan of back light and bright light shining through things.) From my shooting position along the shore of the bay I had quite a range of different sorts of light. Looking to my left (north) toward the mouth of the bay, shoreline buildings, piers, and moored boats were well-lit by morning light coming from my right. But looking back up the bay the sun was rising above the Marin hills right in front of me as bits of fog floated in a few valleys and on the tidelands of the bay. It was very, very bright and this light almost completely washed out all of the colors that were so visible when looking in other directions.

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

Rocks, Surf, and Dusk Horizon

August 7, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A curving rock shelf extends into the “blue hour” Pacific Ocean surf and toward the fog-darkened horizon as night approaches.

A short, evening visit to the California coast above Santa Cruz began with photography in golden hour light in areas where the fog bank hung just offshore with moist air over the coast creating a gentle, misty atmosphere and soft light. We photographed a few subjects in this light – and looked at others that we did not stop to shoot – and continued north as the sun dropped toward the horizon, where the fog waited to envelop it. We stopped at a beach where large groups of pelicans were resting and then resuming their flight along the coast, and noted that there was still a bit of light in the sky and, oddly, below the bottom of the fog bank along the horizon. As this light died, we turned briefly north, and I soon saw this rocky bench extending into the ocean waves.

Following the evening golden hour there is a time that some call the blue hour – when the warmer colors of sunset drain from the sky and we are left with soft, blue light. It might have seemed odd to anyone watching me photograph this rocky feature, but instead of hurrying to shoot it before the light faded, I took my time – I wanted the light to fade, both for the mysterious blue coloration and because this would make it easier for me to use extended exposure times to allow the water to soften and blur a bit. When I began shooting it was only dark enough to get exposures of perhaps a second or two – at least without adding a neutral density filter – but as I waited, making an occasional photograph in the interim, the light began to move toward a near-night state, and I was able to get exposures of 15 seconds or longer… and that blue light that I was looking for.

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.

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: fog

Tomales Bay Hills, Morning

Rocks, Surf, and Dusk Horizon

Beach and Bluffs, Evening

Egret Quartet

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