Tag Archives: hills

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Northern California

Mountains, Lake, Peninsula

November 24, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A peninsula at San Luis Reservoir, with distant hills and autumn clouds

I often pass this location on my way to and from other places — the Sierra, Southern California, the deserts, the Southwest, bird photography locations — but I almost never stop, despite the fact that this can be a place of huge spaces and beautiful light and atmosphere. The reasons for passing it by are perhaps many: I’ve been by it many times over a period of many decades, it isn’t easy to find a place to pull over and stop, it is a manmade reservoir, and I’m usually more focused on getting to or coming back from one of those other places.

Recently I made my first trip of the season out to the migratory bird areas of the Central Valley where I like to do a lot of photography in the late-fall through winter months. This visit was perhaps a bit early for real bird photography, but it gave me a chance to get back to that area that I enjoy so much… and it was a foggy day! (The fog and hazy atmosphere of the Central Valley are major attractions for me.) The bird photography out there was merely OK on this visit and, as planned, I only stayed there for the morning before returning home. As I climbed past the huge earthen dam of this reservoir I was struck by the hazy sunlight on brown hills and the brilliantly bright clouds to the south across the expanse of the water. At first I kept going, but I soon came to my senses, found a place to turn around, and headed back to an overlook where I made a few photographs of this landscape.

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

Calero Oaks and Summer Grass

August 28, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Oak and grass-covered summer hills extending into late summer morning haze

This is a portrait orientation version of more of less the same scene I shared in an earlier photograph from the same mid-August morning hike through a familiar, long time favorite local hiking and photography location. It is an area full of grasslands and oak-covered hills, lush and green for a few months each winter and spring, and then California gold/brown for much of the rest of the year. I have hiked these hills and this specific trail for many years, though it had been several months since my last prior visit — it was good to be “home” again!

This morning was special for a few reasons. There was a wonderful feeling of returning to “my world” following a few months away from this place and my return, only days earlier, from a lengthy trip to the east coast that included more than a week in the very urban environment of New York City. It also turned out, a bit to my surprise, that this hike would bring my annual “autumn is just around the corner” experience — that day each year when something tells me clearly that summer is beginning to wind down and that the beauties of autumn are not far away.

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

Oaks and Grass, Late Summer

August 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Late summer morning fog clears about oak and grass-covered California hills

Today’s photographic journey was a short one — back to a local park where I have photographed for quite a few years, though not recently. This is a place that I used to go to almost every week, and where I hiked just about every trail, to the point that I became intimately familiar with the place in all seasons. It is a landscape of rolling hills with a few high, rocky outcroppings, many oak trees, and grassland. In the manner of most of California, the grass deeply affects the appearance — changing from “impossible green” in winter and spring to brown or golden, depending upon your disposition. I think of it as golden.

This morning I was in a bit of an autumn frame of mind. (A separate post today will have more to say about that pleasant state.) I got up early to discover that the area was covered by the typical coastal high fog. (I live perhaps an hour’s drive from the Pacific Ocean.) This is not the sort of romantic and moody fog that sits low to the ground and floats among trees. It is the higher, drab, gray kind of fog that produces an undifferentiated sky and very flat light. However, at this time of year that fog will most certainly clear, usually by mid-morning. So I left home in these gray conditions, planning to be among the oaks and grass when the fog began to break up.

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

Golden Hills, Desert Sky

June 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early evening clouds fill the sky above golden hills, Death Valley National Park, California

Today’s photograph is about as much of a contrast with yesterday’s photograph (winter in Yosemite Valley) as you can find in California, though both were made at close to the same time of the year. This photograph comes from the golden hills and broad washes along the east side of Death Valley south of the Furnace Creek Area.

Earlier that afternoon we had arrived in the park for a visit of several days. After getting settled we had a bit of daylight time still in the late afternoon and early evening, so we headed south towards these clouds. (The clouds were perhaps a harbinger of the strange weather we would have later on during our visit, including a full day of very cold weather and even snow high in the Panamint Range.) Many of the hills in Death Valley are not exactly of brilliant colors—this desert is quite different from that of, say, Utah. But in this particular area colorful formations rise from the edge of the Valley, and the rocks that have washed down carry that color out into the Valley… at least if you happen to be there late in the afternoon before the sun drops behind the tall mountains on the other side of the valley.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: hills

Mountains, Lake, Peninsula

Calero Oaks and Summer Grass

Oaks and Grass, Late Summer

Golden Hills, Desert Sky

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