Tag Archives: hills

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: San Francisco

Departing Freighter

September 16, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Freighter approaching the Golden Gate as it departs from San Francisco Bay.

On this hazy but fog-less August morning I had stopped above the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge on my way north towards Point Reyes, where I planned a day of photography. I cross the bridge frequently, but I almost always schedule my crossings for times when the light might be interesting, at least if I have any control over my schedule. A summer day like this can bring any of a wide range of conditions: the bridge and bay could be totally socked in my fog, a finger of fog might extend inland while everything else is for-free, the sky could be crystal clear. On this morning the morning haze obscured a lot fo the long views… but it also increased the sense of distance and hid some distracting background elements that might have been visible in clearer conditions.

Some minutes earlier, while photographing a very different landscape from this spot, I had seen this ship beginning its outbound voyage all the way back under the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Having watched these ships before I knew that it would eventually make its way past Treasure Island, around Alcatraz, make a wide loop, and then turn back to cross in front of me as it approached the passage through the Golden Gate. With this in mind, I kept an eye on it, and once it cleared Alcatraz I kept a close eye on it, making this exposure just as it made its final turn toward the Bridge with only the surface of the bay, the faint and distant hills, and the sky creating a blue background.

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.

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Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

California Sky, New Years Morning

September 10, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The sky over Northern California, stretching from coastal hills and fog across the tule-fog-filled Central Valley to the Sierra Nevada, New Years Morning.

On New Years Day 2008 I flew to Seattle for a family visit. As we flew out of San Jose and over the hills along the eastern edge of the Bay Area, the winter tule fog was filling the Central Valley and spilling up against the hills, while above and beyond it was a nearly perfectly clear sky. For those who might be unfamiliar with the landscape here, beyond the fog-filled Central Valley, and very far away, the faint dark line of the Sierra Nevada crest is visible, and if you look very closely you may be able to see that the highest peaks are snow-capped.

This photograph has sat in the archive for over three years. I liked the scene but I wasn’t quite sure of what to do with the somewhat odd colors that resulted from shooting though an airplane window and into very bright light. I had considered a straightforward black and white interpretation and, if fact, that is what I was working on when I decided to instead desaturate the image about three-quarters of the way to being monochrome – and for me this seemed like just the right thing and more in line with how I think of the scene now. Another question was whether to clone out the contrail of another plane near the upper left corner. In the end I decided to leave it, for several reasons that I’ll leave to your imagination for now.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Lupine and Fog

August 30, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Spring lupine blossoms grow on fog-shrouded slopes of Mission Peak above Fremont, California.

While doing a major review of the past half-dozen years of raw files this week I have come across quite a few photographs that I had more or less forgotten. (I’ve also deleted a lot of old raw files, but that is a different story.) While I had forgotten this photograph, I remember the day I took it quite well and the memory of the photograph came back as soon as I found it.

Mission Peak is more than 2000′ feet above the Mission San Jose (part of Fremont) area of the San Francisco Bay Area, in the East Bay a bit north of San Jose. The peak is a very popular hiking location due to its proximity to urban areas, its quick access to near-wilderness, and the fact the summit provides a spectacular view of the southern parts of the San Francisco Bay, ranging from the South Bay and the Santa Cruz Mountains all the way up to San Francisco and, on clear days, beyond. On this day it was not clear, at least not at the start of the hike – it was extremely foggy, quite wet, and rather cold. But anyone who photographs flowers much knows that soft and diffused light can be your friend, and this fog certainly provided that light. The fog-obscured hills beyond are covered in the intense green (what I call the “impossible green”) of the California grasslands in spring.

By the way, I recall that as I continued on up the trail past these flowers and approached the summit of the peak I emerged above the fog bank to find hillsides carpeted with more lupine and with California golden poppy flowers.

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Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: White Mountains

Owens Valley Sky

August 27, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dramatic thunderstorms begin to build above Owens Valley, flanked by the White Mountains and the eastern Sierra Nevada range.

If there is any good news about starting to run out of space on my hard drive, it might be that it encourages me to begin the process of reviewing my tens of thousands of archived raw image files, and that leads me to look through files that I haven’t revisited in a long time – and during this process I find photographs that I had forgotten about. Not only is it worthwhile to rediscover these photographs that ended up buried in the archive, but it is also a chance to recall some of the trips on which the photographs were made.

This photograph is yet another (of many!) that wouldn’t have happened at all if it were not for a whole unpredictable series of events and circumstances. I’ll make the story as short as I can, but it is still a bit involved. Almost every summer I share a long pack trip with a group of my friends. In 2005 we had come up with a 14-day trip along a good portion of the John Muir Trail between roughly the Ediza Lake area and Bishop Pass, which included one of the very few sections of the JMT that I had not hiked. We started at Agnew Meadow, headed up past Shadow Lake, turned south on the JMT, stopped at Reds Meadow, continued on to the Duck and Purple Lakes area… where I started to feel like I might be coming down with some sort of bug. Discretion being the better part of valor and all that, I decided that the prudent thing was to bail out of the trip and exit to Mammoth Lakes since the idea of getting sick on the fourth day of a 14-day hike with a large group was not appealing.

So I hiked out. Ironically, once I crossed the pass to head down to the Mammoth area, I recovered – but it was now too late to rejoin my group since they would be two days ahead of me on the trail at this point. Since I was back at my car now and feeling just fine I figured that I might as well do something else before heading home, so I decided to drive up into the White Mountains and visit the Bristlecone Pine forest. On the way back down from the Whites I just happened to pull out at this spot where the high desert terrain was extra green around a creek, on an afternoon when monsoon conditions were leading to a buildup of afternoon clouds above the Sierra, the Whites, and Owens Valley between the two ranges.

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