Tag Archives: highway

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

Mountains, Sea, and Haze

May 28, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Spring haze, morning light, and rugged mountains meeting the Pacific Ocean, Big Sur coast

This spot marked the furthest south that I travelled on my brief photographic foray along the Big Sur coast earlier this week. Here, as in a number of other spots along this section of the Pacific Coast Highway, the route rises high above the ocean to pass through a section of very steep cliffs where the coastal mountains and the ocean meet abruptly. From this overlook the spines of a few nearby ridges were just to my south, and beyond the shoreline disappeared into the glowing atmospheric haze to the south.

One of the advantages of modern digital cameras is that they permit more flexibility and allow us to make aesthetic choices about our photographs more freely. Although I mostly “see” in color, sometimes a subject works better in black and white. Sometimes I don’t even realize this at the time of the exposure. Which is OK, since digital allows us to sometimes think less of “making the photograph” in the field and perhaps more about “bringing the image back” for full realization in the post-processing stage. In some cases, it allows us to focus more on pure capture and to put off some of the decisions we might have had to make at that point until later. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing! However, this is an example of a photograph that I knew was going to be black and white as soon as I saw the scene. Looking south along this coast on a day like this one, the air is filled with a haze made luminous by backlight. Colors are often so muted that they might as well be black and white, and the haze itself can take on a strong blue cast. Here I didn’t want that blue haze effect, but I did want the glow and the strong shapes of the ridges dropping into the sea.

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

Mouth of the Little Sur River

May 27, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Little Sur river empties into the Pacific Ocean beneath the fog-shrouded mountains of the Big Sur coastline

It has been a very busy month or so, and since my early April trip to Death Valley, aside from a quick one-day visit to Tioga Pass on opening weekend, there has been less time for photography than I would like. I finally managed to find time to break away today, and I had enough desire to photograph that I was even willing to chance the Memorial Day traffic… along the Big Sur coast. I was up very early and on the road while most people were probably sleeping in, and as I passed Carmel and headed south it wasn’t all that crowded for such a day. However, after my first hour or two of photography, the crowds began to show up. I had decided that my plan would be to get the heck out of there before this happened, and as I turned back to the north I congratulated myself on not being in the traffic jam heading south on the coast highway. My joy was short-lived, however, and the rest of my return drive took at least twice as long as usual!

But, anything to get out for a morning along this coast! It was supposed to be warm along this section of the California coast today, and there wasn’t as much fog as usual. However, right in this area a stubborn bank of fog clung to the ridges of the Big Sur mountains, and as I drove along this section of the road the temperature dropped into the fifties and the wind blew like crazy. I almost didn’t stop at this overlook above the lagoon at the outlet of the Little Sur river, thinking that the wind might simply make it impossible to get a shot with the quality I wanted, but the beautiful curve in the green water of the lagoon, the fog bank, and the whitecaps on the deep blue Pacific convinced me to stop and give it a try.

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

Ocean, Winter Light

March 2, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Intense winter sunlight reflects on the cloud-shadowed surface of the Pacific Ocean along the Big Sur coast, California

From my perspective, winter is by far the most interesting time to visit and, especially, to photograph along California’s Pacific Ocean coastline. While summer is the popular season for travel, during that time of year the ocean tends to be tranquil and the weather is often foggy. While it is likely to be warm and sunny elsewhere in California in the summer, along the coast it can feel more like winter! But winter along the coast brings much more diverse conditions and even some surprising warmth when conditions are just right. When large Pacific storms churn away far north in the Gulf of Alaska, lines of huge waves may crash on the shoreline. When the storms arrive, the coastal areas can be whipped by wind-driven rain. But between the storms there can be days of crystal clear weather.

That was the weather on the last day of January when we took a long round trip down the Big Sur coast and back. Aside from some (beautiful!) coastal haze that glowed in the midday light, it was a clear day and surprisingly warm for the most part. Along the Big Sur coastline the Pacific Coast Highway alternates between the coastal lowlands and a track that takes it high into the rugged mountains along the shoreline. Vast expanses of the surface of the Pacific are visible from the highest spots, and as we started down from one of these high points we saw the water, with the color and texture of molten metal, stretching away into the sun and towards the horizon, with a few shadows from thin clouds darkening the water near the shore.

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

Elephant Seal – Face and Flippers

March 1, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

In a pile of elephant seals, one animal rests its head on the back of another

Here is another elephant seal “portrait” from our end-of-January to an elephant seal “nursery” near the southern end of California’s Big Sur coastline. We had a day to photograph the Big Sur coast, so we made this spot the target for our turn-around point, photographing the coast on the way down and back.

This popular place to view the elephant seals when they come ashore for breeding is very close to the Pacific Coast Highway, and it attracts a lot of visitors. In contrast to many such places, where the seals are (lucky for them!) not very accessible to visitors, here a walkway has been constructed along a low bluff right above the beach where the seals give birth and raise pups each winter. In most ways, this is some of the least challenging wildlife photography you’ll ever encounter! Yet the opportunity to be so close to these huge beasts is hard to resist. The photography turns out to be just a bit more tricky than you might think when you show up to find hundreds of elephant seals laid out along a beach that is only a few yards away from your position. The seals are not exactly the most active critters around, and most of the time they lie prone in the sand, occasionally slapping a flipper or opening an eye. My approach is to watch for animals in positions that might make good photographs should they decide to become active, and then to watch attentively for signs of action and, especially, for interactions among the animals or the occasional animal watching me.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: highway

Mountains, Sea, and Haze

Mouth of the Little Sur River

Ocean, Winter Light

Elephant Seal – Face and Flippers

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