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Land And Sea

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Land And Sea
Big Sur coast meets the Pacific Ocean

Land And Sea. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Big Sur coast meets the Pacific Ocean

I live close enough to the Big Sur coastline that I can visit on day trips, and I can visit at times when it is relatively quiet and uncrowded. A winter weekday can be ideal, and right now it is even less busy since the route is still blocked by a giant landscape perhaps fifty miles or so below the Monterey Peninsula.

Most often I prefer to photograph fairly early in the morning, when the light skims down across the coastal hills, creating patterns of shadow and light, or else in the evening, when the warm light of the late-day sun colors the ocean and the hills. But on some almost perfectly clear winter days, perhaps with a few high clouds and some atmospheric haze, the air almost glows and I can photograph right through the middle of the day. This was such a day. The haze and mist, partly atmospheric and party from spray thrown up by surf, accentuated the bluffs and headlands as they dropped into the Pacific, and the brilliant sun made the water so bright that it was difficult to look at it.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Fog, Trees, and Pond

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Fog, Trees, and Pond
Fog, Trees, and Pond

Fog, Trees, and Pond. San Joaquin Valley, California. February 14, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tule fog nearly obscures a San Joaquin Valley pond and surrounding trees

This particular fog condition developed quickly as we were out in the San Joaquin Valley early on a winter morning photographing birds. The winter tule fog in the Valley is often quite thin — so thin, in fact, that you can sometimes seen the stars and moon above on a night when you can barely make out object 100 feet in front of you. This was that sort of fog, but a gentle breeze was also moving it around and changing the conditions from moment to moment. I recall coming to this spot, where the marshland water extends for some distance, and noticing that the trees were alternating between the state of “barely visible” and “not visible at all,” and the fog was brightly lit from the morning sun and sky.

This sort of subject is a bit challenging to photograph and to work with in post. The contrast is obviously very low, and details are hard to see, making focus a bit tricky. And the low contrast almost certainly requires a bit of work in post to get the right combination of diffuse, luminous atmosphere and enough detail to produce an image that makes sense. Here, since the sky was actually quite bright, I wanted to push the sky close to white but still retain the subtle shapes of the high clouds. And beyond all of that, I wanted the photograph to evoke the feelings of stillness and mystery that arise on such a morning.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Fog, Tree, Marsh, Morning Sky

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Fog, Tree, Marsh, Morning Sky
Fog, Tree, Marsh, Morning Sky

Fog, Tree, Marsh, Morning Sky. San Joaquin Valley, California. February 14, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Winter morning fog in bright morning light above a San Joaquin Valley marsh

I made this photograph, rendered here as a high key black and white image, in a wetland area of California’s San Joaquin Valley. Photography began on this morning before dawn, in very foggy conditions. Here, nearly two hours later, we had worked our way around to a different location where shallow ponds stretched into the distance, reflecting trees in the thinning fog that was brightly lit by the morning sun, and with high clouds above.

At the time when I looked across this water I was struck by how little of substance there was in the scene. Above was misty and faintly blue sky with thin clouds. Below there was water, but the water served primary to reflect that same sky. The only solid material in the scene is the faint trees, a few birds, some bits of grass, and a couple of thin strips of levee. Everything else is sky or fog or reflection of sky and fog. The photograph is one of a series that I have tucked away, yet to work on at the appropriate time, and in need of further thought: Do I work with the high key luminosity of the scene, or do I work with the color version in which everything is shades of blue?

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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

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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Zabriskie Point Detail, Gullies and Folds

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Zabrisksie Point Detail, Gullies and Folds
Zabriskie Point Detail, Gullies and Folds

Zabriskie Point Detail, Gullies and Folds. Death Valley National Park, California. March 27, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of patterns of gully and hills in bright daytime light at Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park, California.

Here I decided to try a black and white high key approach to this generally very bright scene shot not in the typical early morning time frame, but about two hours or so after the middle of the day. I like the way that darker, shadowed wedge of hill on the right sits in the middle of the curving line of the gully as outlined by the lighter face in the full sun. As with several other photographs I’ve posted recently from this area, I used a rather long focal length and composed an image from a very small detail of the scene in the folded hills below Zabriskie Point.

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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Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM at 330mm
ISO 100, f/16, 1/80 second

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