Tag Archives: headland

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

Bixby Bridge, Pacific Coast Highway

April 21, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Pacific Coast Highway winds along the rugged California Big Sur coastline at Bixby Bridge

This is a pretty classic view of the California coastline, including a well-known section of the Pacific Coast Highway (route 1) below Monterey in the northern section of the Big Sur coast. Shot from high on bluffs above the ocean, where the highway climbs to one of its high points, the photograph looks north up the coast across pastureland on the foreground bluff towards the famous Bixby Bridge, located in the surf-filled cove just beyond. More bluffs and ridges dropping to the sea fade into the distant haze beyond that.

This was a beautiful spring day, so I got up very early and was in the Monterey area as the sun came up. The conditions were not quite what I expected. I knew that it was supposed to be windy, so I was expecting very clear conditions. The sky was clear of clouds, but there was quite a bit of low atmospheric haze – it almost looked like it wanted to be fog but couldn’t quite get it together to form clouds. This light does difficult things to colors, but it also creates an interesting contrast between the relatively clear closer objects and further subjects desaturated by the haze. It was also windy – very windy by the time I stopped shooting late in the morning.

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

Rocky Creek Bridge, Sunset

December 26, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Sunset light illuminates the Rocky Creek Bridge, winter surf, a natural arch, and a rugged section of the Big Sur coastline.

This is, for me, essentially the prototypical Big Sur coastline photograph. The Rocky Creek bridge spans, not surprisingly, the canyon holding Rocky Creek, located in a bay not far from the well-known Rocky Point south of Carmel, California along the coast highway. This little scene holds most of the elements that we identify with this area: the old coast highway bridge with its curving support structures, turbulent surf, headlands and bluffs, a small beach, steep cliffs dropping into the ocean, and sea stacks, rocky islands, and natural arches.

I have photographed almost this exact same scene many times, but with the variables of season, weather, light, and surf I keep coming back. I have several black and white photographs of the scene that are among my favorites, but I have been trying to get a color photograph for some time. It turns out to be a bit trickier than it might seem. I wanted sun, but not too much sun. In the wrong light, the colors in the scene can be difficult with a lot of neutral gray, brown and dark greens. In the morning the light comes from behind the bridge, in the midday hours the light (when it isn’t foggy!) can be overly harsh, and in the evening fog and offshore clouds can interrupt the light.

On this visit to the Monterey Peninsula area I had several opportunities to photograph this spot in mostly clear weather and near sunset when the light comes from the right side and takes on the warmer, saturated “golden hour” quality. I shot it on two evenings. On one the light went flat too quickly when the sun dropped behind clouds parked well off shore. The same thing almost happened on this evening and, in fact, shortly after I made this exposure the light went flat. But before that happened I got a few moments of this beautiful, warm, low angle light coming from the sun as it dropped toward the horizon and lit up the bridge and portions of the rocky terrain.

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

Rocky Creek Bridge, Big Sur Coastline

May 18, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Bluff, cliffs, seastacks, and fog-shrouded coastal hills along the Big Sur coastline of California.

The bridge in the distance beneath the rounded, fog-topped hill is the Rocky Creek Bridge. (It is sometimes mistaken for the famous Bixby Bridge, which is a bit further south along the coast highway.) I’m very familiar with this area, having photographed from here many times. In fact, later on this morning I was up in the hills beyond the hilltop home while investigating a gravel road that heads back up into the mountains here.

I wanted to juxtapose a range of near and far bits of the bluffs above the shoreline cliffs in this scene. While the coastal meadows will turn brown very soon, on this mid-May date and in this relatively wet year they were still green. The coast highway travels along the upper part of the bluffs, often between the cliffs and the hills rising above. Beyond the bridge you can see the roadway rise to pass around another hill before descending toward the next creek to the south.

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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

Beach Walker, Evening, Waddell Creek Beach

December 31, 2009 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A solitary beach walker at sunset approaches a flock of gulls at Waddell Creek Beach with clouds reflected in foreground pond.

This seemed like a good “last day of the year” photograph.

Just as the sun dropped to the horizon a lone beach walker came across this strand between this reflecting pond and the surf beyond and approached a flock of sea gulls. If I look at this photograph just right I can imagine that it is wholly a photograph of sky with a narrow “beach bridge” crossing through the middle.

This is one of a short sequence of photographs I made on this evening. I had spent the entire afternoon more or less looking for the right photographic subjects and had come up with nothing. I had just made what I figured would be my last stop for the day at the “official” beachfront parking lot at Waddell Beach. I got out, looked around, enjoyed the wind and sound of surf, but didn’t see anything that quite inspired me to take out the camera. I got back in the car, turned south on Highway 1… and a few seconds later as I crossed the bridge over the creek I saw the pool reflecting the sky. I quickly turned around and parked the car and made a few exposures in the fading light.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Tag Archives: headland

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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.