Morning fog floats above the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, the Bay Bridge, and Yerba Buena Island.
This is certainly not a unique viewpoint for photographing the Golden Gate (and the bridge named after it) and the rest of San Francisco Bay… but I keep returning anyway. While the principal physical elements of the scene – Marin headlands, bridge, the City, bridges, Yerba Buena Island, the East Bay – the conditions of light and atmosphere change constantly. The variations in the fog alone could be the subject of a book, I’m sure! It can come from the west (summer) or the east (winter), it can be high or low (or both at once!), thin or thick, opaque or luminous, static or moving quickly, illuminated by sun or by artificial light at night, and more.
On this morning it was a combination of several of those. There was a sort of thin fog/haze at the lower levels, but the thicker fog was quite high, above the bridge towers and even a bit above my position in the Marin headlands. The fog was beginning to break up, starting to the east and gradually moving westward toward the coast, and when I made this photograph large beams of diffused light were coming through the fog deck and lighting areas around the San Francisco waterfront and even on the bay waters. Lining up the elements of the photograph wasn’t terribly hard once I found the composition I liked, but then I waited for boats for move into or out of the frame (see a large freighter passing between towers of the distant Bay Bridge) and for the light to appear in (as close to) the right places (as one can hope for).
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. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
New spring growth on the forest floor among the redwoods at Muir Woods National Monument, California.
This is another photograph that I have been “sitting on” for over a year. Back then I made a spring visit to the redwood forest at Muir Woods National Monument, across the Golden Gate from San Francisco, and, as always, arriving very early in the morning. By this time in late April the forest plants were growing like crazy, especially since this had been (and still was, at that point) an unusually wet season. Lush plants were growing everywhere on the forest floor beneath the canopy of coast redwoods, and there was water everywhere.
As I walked along the trail I was keeping my eyes out for small areas of foliage that were dense enough to be almost solid and which included combinations of more than one kind of plant. The undergrowth of “clover” – actually Oregon oxalis or redwood sorrel – was growing everywhere, but I wanted something other than a uniform patch of that plant. Near a trail junction in deep shade beneath the trees I found these plants. At the time I was thinking of a color rendition of the photograph, but as I worked on it in post I became frustrated with that possibility due to the difficult color of the shaded light and some reflections on the surfaces of the leaves. So I let this image go and moved on to others. I was recently revisiting raw files from 2011 and when I arrived at this one, it now seemed like it might be worth working on in black and white.
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. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Happy birthday to the San Francisco Bay Area’s iconic Golden Gate Bridge!
Panorama of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, and the San Francisco Bay in dramatic morning light.
Photographed from near the north end of the bridge, the sweep of the cables leading to the top of the north tower frames a panorama from Alcatraz Island at the far left, past beams of morning sun on the east end of the Bay Bridge, across the skyline of downtown San Francisco, with the Bay in the foreground.
Having lived and photographed in the San Francisco Bay Area for decades, the Golden Gate Bridge has been a central part of my experience of the area. I frequently photograph in San Francisco and across the bridge to the north, and even when the bridge itself is not my primary intended subject I almost always look in its direction to see what it will offer up as a new photographic opportunity. I have been fortunate to be close enough to see the bridge in an incredible range of conditions – at night, in winter storms, at sunrise, and more.
Since the 75th Anniversary of the opening of the bridge is being celebrated today, it seems like a good time to collect a few of my favorite Golden Gate Bridge photographs that feature, include, or are part of the experience of this icon. In keeping with the retrospective theme of such a birthday, I’ve chosen mostly black and white photographs. But first, a panorama…
Golden Gate Bridge Tower, Transamerica Building, San Francisco Skyline
Among the most famous views of the bridge are those looking back across the Golden Gate (which, technically, refers to the mouth of the bay) past the bridge toward the skyline of San Francisco.
Black and white night photograph of the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California.
The bridge and the city take on a completely different appearance at night. This photograph was made from the hills near the north end of the bridge, looking back through it towards San Francisco.
Freighter departing San Francisco Bay on a foggy morning is seen through the cables of the Golden Gate Bridge with the San Francisco skyline in the background. Black and white photograph. September 18, 2007.
I am especially fond of the very early morning views of the bridge and the bay, and I often stop here on my way to photograph other locations. While one can certainly end up completely socked in by fog here, at other times the range of effects of atmosphere and light is extraordinary. Here several ships pass under the bridge on a morning when the fog is just beginning to clear east of The City.
Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, Morning Haze - Black and white photograph of Golden Gate Bridge north tower, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and the East Bay Hills in morning haze.
Seen from high in the Marin Headlands, the silhouette of the north tower of the bridge bisects the western span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on a morning when low haze blanketed the Bay Area.
Clearing Fog, North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge - Morning fog clears from the North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California.
Classic Golden Gate Bridge fog passes fills the entrance to the Bay and rises up over the hills of the Marin Headlands, with the skyline of The City visible on the horizon.
Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay, Morning Haze
The Oakland area and the eastern section of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge – both the old version and the new one under construction – seem over one of the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Morning traffic crosses the Golden Gate Bridge approaching the south tower with haze-shrouded San Francisco hills and Sutro Tower beyond.
Looking south across the bridge toward the even taller structure of the Sutro Tower.
North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, Morning
The silhouette of a large outgoing freighter passes beneath the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in the distance beyond the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.
San Francisco Bay morning fog over begins to break up over Alcatraz and Yerba Buena Islands and the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge.
Alcatraz Island and the Bay, lit by golden early morning light.
Photograph of the night skyline of San Francisco shot through the cables of the Golden Gate Bridge. Holiday lighting on downtown buildings.
I’ll include one real night photograph of the bridge, though I’ll be sneaky about it and not show the whole bridge. (There are plenty of those photographs floating around and, yes, I have those, too!) Here I shot through the cables with a very long lens on a late autumn night when the holiday lights had been put up on the downtown San Francisco buildings – Look at the far left to see the Transamerica Building and the Embarcadero Center lights.
The moon, in full lunar eclipse, passes behind the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.
I joined thousands of fellow Bay Area citizens to rise well before dawn and photograph this full lunar eclipse just before sunrise.
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. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Arthur Tress discusses his photographs with a group of photographers at his exhibit at the De Young Museum, San Francisco.
Back in early March, Adobe invited a number of San Francisco Bay Area photographers to meet with photographer Arthur Tress at his show at the De Young Museum, “San Francisco 1964.” (Thanks, Adobe!) After we assembled in the lobby and had a moment or two to speak to some of Adobe folks, including some working on the just-released new version of Lightroom, we adjourned to the gallery. In this photograph, the group listens to Tress (barely visible at the far side of the taller) as he walks through the gallery and talks about his work.
Tress and a photography curator introduced us to the show and shared some back-story and perspectives on the work it includes. The photographs are all black and white images shot in medium format during a period when Tress first came to the west coast in 1964, a year when a lot of interesting stuff was happening in The City – including the first US concerts by the Beatles, the “Goldwater” Republican convention, civil rights demonstrations, and more. Tress’s photographs are interesting on several levels: as a record of aspects of the period that we might not realize we have lost (especially to this photographer who was a child living in the Bay Area at that time), as a record of actual events, and as an often-witty commentary on much of what he observed.
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. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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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.
