Tag Archives: highway

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

Coastal Cliffs, Mist And Shadows

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Coastal Cliffs, Mist And Shadows
Morning light illuminates ocean mist between cliffs descending to the Pacific Ocean

Coastal Cliffs, Mist And Shadows. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light illuminates ocean mist between cliffs descending to the Pacific Ocean

While spending a February morning and early afternoon photographing along the Big Sur coastline I passed by a rather famous and often crowded spot. Having visiting and photographed there many times, I wasn’t all that interested in stopping this time. However, I did look as I passed by, and I thought I saw some interesting light and spray down at the base of these cliffs.

By the time I saw it, there was no time to stop, so I continued on a bit, found a turnout, reversed direction and came back to look more closely. At this morning hour the western-facing cliffs are usually still in shadow, but the sun begins to rise high enough to send beams of light between them, lighting the mist and spray from surf and intensifying the color or the near-shore waters.

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

Point Sur, Horizon, Clouds

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Point Sur, Horizon, Clouds
Historic Point Sur is dwarfed by clouds and the Pacific Ocean

Point Sur, Horizon, Clouds. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Historic Point Sur is dwarfed by clouds and the Pacific Ocean

By the time I got to this point on the Big Sur coast on this February winter day, it was past early morning and the light was more that of the midday hours. Often that might mean that the light had become flat and uninteresting, but some clouds close to the shoreline, some sunlight in the distance, and some high clouds further on made even this daytime light interesting.

I’m very familiar with this spot, where a historic lighthouse facility sits on top of a remarkable hill that would be separated from the land but for a low, sandy peninsula connecting it to the shoreline. Photographing from some distance away with a long lens, and aiming pretty much straight into the brightest reflected light, the hill’s details almost disappear into shadow, and it appears to float in the light and water.

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

Bluff, Tidal Flats, Tomales Bay

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Bluff, Tidal Flats, Tomales Bay
Evening along the shoreline of Tomales Bay

Bluff, Tidal Flats, Tomales Bay. Near Point Reyes National Seashore, California. October 15, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening along the shoreline of Tomales Bay

This is another photograph from our very recent visit to areas of California just north of San Francisco. If you follow the news, that description perhaps calls to mind the recent (and current, as I write this) major wildfires burning in California, including the disastrous fire in the Santa Rosa area that killed dozens of people and destroyed thousands of homes and other structures. In fact, we were very close to that area on this trip. We might not have gone at all, except that one of the reasons for going there was to participate in a wedding — and since the wedding went on despite the first, we went. We had planned a few days after that for photography, and we decided to stick to that plan, too.

The effects of the fires were obvious in many ways: signs in shops and elsewhere about people needing a place to stay or raising funds for fire relief, the traffic heading to the coast to try to find relief from the smoke, and the constant presence of that smoke in the air. We ended up doing much less photography than we usually would, but on one day we did manage to make a few photographs. We had driven north up that coast a ways, turning around just north of Jenner where the smoke became quite severe, and we were returning to the area around Point Reyes National Seashore. We arrived alongside upper Tomales Bay, which separates Point Reyes from the rest of California, not long before sunset. Here the smoke thinned a bit, mostly just producing some atmospheric haze, and the scene was quiet and still in the early evening light.

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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Panamint Valley, Wash

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Panamint Valley, Wash
A large desert wash curves towards the Panamint Valley

Panamint Valley, Wash. Death Valley National Park, California. April 7, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A large desert wash curves towards the Panamint Valley

I always associate this view, of this canyon and the valley and mountains beyond, with leaving Death Valley. For many years I always access the park via the road up from Ridgecrest that passes through the desolate town of Trona, coming up the Panamint Valley before entering the park, either over Towne Pass or via Emigrant Pass and Wildrose Canyon. At some point I decided to take what I later determined to be the route favored by many other visitors, route 190 across to highway 395 at Olancha near the dry desolation of Owens Lake.

This view lies along that route. Shortly after leaving Panamint Valley the road passes up a bit of a canyon, crosses a ridge, and then tracks along the slopes paralleling this wash that runs out into Panamint Valley. The wash itself has a beautiful quality, curving gracefully around toward its arrival in the larger valley between the two dark, rounded hills. Across the Panamint Valley, at the base of the far mountains, there are sandy stretches which develop into full-blown dunes just a bit to the left of the area shown in the photograph. On this morning a weather from was coming in, producing some dramatic clouds above the Panamint Range.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.