Tag Archives: highway

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

Gull, Sky, and Fog

July 16, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A solitary gull flies above California’s Pacific Ocean coastline with a fog bank and blue sky beyond.

With some free time earlier this week, and the excuse of driving my son to a summer-session class at UC-Santa Cruz, I headed north from Santa Cruz looking for things to photograph. Because there was a lot of fog, even in the middle of the day, fog was one of my general subject ideas. And I almost always make at least a quick stop at a couple of bluff-top locations that I know of where shore birds often glide by very close as they ride the updrafts from the ocean winds. It turned out that my first stop was precisely one of these locations. With nothing else specific in mind at this midday hour, I figured I would at least spend a bit of time honing my skills and tracking and photographing birds in flight.

Although sea gulls are not necessarily my favorite subjects, there sure were plenty of them to practice on! At the spot I picked, they first become visible perhaps 10-15 seconds away as they come around the edge of a bluff to the south. As they approach they tend to vary their altitudes, with some dropping low enough that they disappear behind the cliff and others going so high that only their shaded undersides are visible. But a few come very close at almost eye level.

I almost always learn something new when I photograph birds in flight and this session was no exception. While in retrospect it seems like one of those “Well, duh!” realizations, I figured out that really strong winds tend to upset the birds ability to remain level, and for this reason they are constantly adjusting to remain level. From moment to moment the wings move into interesting positions or they find themselves tilting wildly to get back on course. This is much more interesting than what they do in benign conditions, where they often seem to just… coast.

So, add one more thing to watch for as they fly past. This isn’t an easy thing, and I have the greatest admiration for those who are really great at photographing birds in flight – or “BIF,” as some call them. The first challenge is simply to keep the moving birds in the viewfinder when using a long focal length lens. (I advise practicing the process of simply following the birds without even firing the shutter at first.) But that’s not enough. You must also attempt to keep the bird(s) in a position within the frame that is aesthetically interesting and which will position the target under the active AF points on the camera. Easier said than done! Then there is the matter of trying also be aware of what the bird is doing – watching wing and head position and so forth. On top of that, you ideally also want to be aware of the what else is in the frame – sky, clouds, water, other birds – and factor that into the decision about when to press the shutter. There are exposure challenges, too, especially with birds like this gull that have white on their backs… and this portion of the bird is in direct sun.

Let’s just say that – for me at least – it takes a lot of exposures to get a few shots that I like.

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Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Freeway Overpass, Townsend Street

July 9, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Freeway overpass crosses the train tracks along Townsend Street near the Caltrain station, San Francisco.

In the middle of a long string of landscape photographs from the Sierra Nevada, today I present a photograph of… what appears to be a trashed and abandoned area beneath a freeway overpass. I’m guess that at least a few people reading this might be perplexed.

While I absolutely love going to and photographing wild and scenic areas – and as a resident of northern California I’m fortunate to live close to some pretty amazing such places – those are not the only photographic subjects that I find interesting. The explanation is complicated and would require me to discuss a whole range of things including from the nature of beauty (e.g. – “beautiful” and “pretty” are not the same thing), the relationship between the concepts of “natural” and “civilized, the belief that part of what a photograph might do is show a thing in a way that the viewer might not otherwise consider, and even the practical effect on all of my photography from photographing more than one thing. Heck, I also just like to visit San Francisco and other urban areas and wander around!

This time of year I make regular trips to San Francisco, usually taking the train into The City fairly early in the morning and then wandering on foot wherever my interest leads me. On this morning I was up before 5:00 a.m., out the door to catch a bus at about 5:25, on the train a bit before 6:00, and walking out of the San Francisco Caltrain station a couple minutes after 7:00 a.m. As the train approached the station I noticed a number of freeway overpasses – the same sort of structures that were used so effectively in San Francisco Opera’s recent production of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, which affected me visually as well as in the other expected ways. So as soon as I got off the train I headed back along Townsend to this little space beneath the 6th Street exit ramp from highway 280 and photographed in the very same “golden hour” light that I would look for if I were in the Sierra.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Late Afternoon, Tenaya Lake

July 8, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Ice covers the surface of Tenaya Lake on the day of the mid-June opening of Tioga Pass Road as afternoon clouds cluster around the summit of Mount Conness, Yosemite National Park.

After the wild sunset-illuminated versions of this scene that I’ve posted recently, I thought it might be a relief to post something more subtle! This photograph was also made on the evening of June 18, the day that Tioga Pass Road opened for the 2011 season. A bit earlier I had photographed along the shoreline of Tenaya Lake – the ice-covered area in the lower portion of this image – where I had juxtaposed melting ice, deep blue water, and interesting clouds. When I finished there I had a decision to make – whether to head back up toward the pass, continue to photograph around the lake, or try to get a shot of Mount Conness from Olmsted Point. Since I had been in contact with a client concerning Mount Conness photographs just a few days earlier, I decided to try that third choice.

When I arrived at Olmsted, conditions were a bit unpromising. Clouds had come up over the Sierra crest and Conness was completely obscured. In addition, a certain type of gloomy haze and cloudiness was taking much of the energy out of the scene. Clouds to the west were washing out the light, too. Many times I don’t give up immediately in situations like this, at least not until I’ve spent a bit of time trying to get a sense of where things might be headed. (Ultimately on this evening that turned out to be a good decision, as near sunset one of the most intense displays of Sierra evening color occurred… but that it a story I’ve already told in earlier posts.) As I watched, the clouds around Conness began to move a bit and every so often a bit of the tip of the mountain would poke through. During one of these moments, a bit of light filtered through the high clouds from the west and glanced across the slopes of Polly Dome and struck the upper reaches of Medlicott Dome.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Trees and Sunset Sky, Olmsted Point

July 7, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Trees growing on granite silhouetted against a colorful sunset sky at Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park.

This astonishing, magical light occurred just at and right after sunset on the evening of June 18, the day that Tioga Pass finally opened for the 2011 summer season. I earlier posted a vertical format photograph of much the same scene, though with slightly different light – the other photograph was made about a minute after this one and the conditions were changing very rapidly.

The photograph was made from the popular Olmsted Point overlook along the Tioga Pass Road (highway 120), with its well-known view of subalpine Tenaya Lake. Since I have recounted the story of this light in some detail in an earlier post, I’ll keep this description somewhat short, but here is the genera outline. Earlier in the evening I had come here to try to photograph Mount Conness with a long lens. Initially the light was very unpromising, but I observed some things that suggested the possibility of sunset light so I stuck around. Just before sunset, as the sun dropped near the horizon to the west, the light came from below to illuminate the thin, high clouds and produce an amazing color show.

To make the series of photographs of these trees I simply pivoted my tripod around from the direction it had been pointing, towards Mount Conness. The trees are somewhat sparse here since the granite domes and slabs cannot support many of them. The speed of light and color transition was remarkable. At one or more points, as the clouds picked up the sunset glow, the brightness of the light suddenly increased noticeably. The brightest color moved across the sky from east to west, and here the color was just beginning to diminish ever so slightly overhead as it continues to intensify to the west and closer to the horizon.

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