Tag Archives: horizon

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

Pacific Ocean, Big Sur

Image Leave a comment
Pacific Ocean, Big Sur
Looking west across the Pacific Ocean from the Big Sur mountains on a quiet autumn day.

Pacific Ocean, Big Sur. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Looking west across the Pacific Ocean from the Big Sur mountains on a quiet autumn day.

Views like this never fail to make me pause. There’s something about an expanse of “empty” earth, whether liquid or solid, that focuses the attention. It could be standing at the Arctic Circle and looking north (which I’e done only once), viewing expansive desert terrain from a mountain ridge, or looking across the ocean toward the distant horizon from a high viewpoint. I’m not sure I can articulate the attraction precisely, but it includes the immense space, the absence of obvious human presence, and the encounter with deep time in a place that has probably looked like this for what seems like forever.

Perhaps ironically, this particular view is from a spot along the Pacific Coast Highway that can be crowded ruing the high tourist season. However, on this late-autumn weekday morning there was almost no one else around, and I shared this spot with a single cyclist who had stopped for a snack at the top of the climb.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

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

Clearing Coastal Fog

Image Leave a comment
Clearing Coastal Fog
Morning coastal fog begins to break up over the Pacific Ocean off the California coast.

Clearing Coastal Fog. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Morning coastal fog begins to break up over the Pacific Ocean off the California coast.

Conditions were both odd… and very normal for June on this recent visit to the Pacific coastline between Santa Cruz and San Francisco. The odd? In some spots the drizzle was heavy enough to almost count as rain, something quite unusual in these parts of California in June. The usual? We have a term for it here: “June Gloom,” when the influence of cooler ocean waters creates a lot of coastal fog, often sufficient to spread inland throughout the Bay Area.

The three things that will usually bring me to the coast to photograph are fog, a storm, and/or high surf. This was obviously a foggy day, and my general strategy is to photograph in the moody, murky fog until it begins to clear. At that point I chase the fog line, where all kinds of wonderful things happen with light and color. The blue of the sky intensifies the color of the water, and the contrasts grow between shaded ocean and the places where it is either still in fog or catching the first sun.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

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

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

Wave-Filled Bay, California Coast

Image Leave a comment
Wave-Filled Bay, California Coast
Surf along the beach at the mouth of San Carpoforo Creek near the southen end of the Big Sur coast.

Wave-Filled Bay, California Coast. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Surf along the beach at the mouth of San Carpoforo Creek near the southen end of the Big Sur coast.

We were recently in Southern California for the Thanksgiving holiday, and we decided to extend our drive back to Northern California, taking an extra day to drive up the Pacific Coast Highway along the Big Sur Coast. The question of just what is and is not “Bug Sur” comes up in a photograph of a location like this one. My working definition of “Big Sur” is larger than the town by that name much further north, and it encompasses everything south of roughly Carmel, down to the area below Ragged Point where the coastal landscape is much gentler. This photograph comes from the very southern end of that area — the vantage point is very close to Ragged Point, but it looks south toward those coastal lowlands.

Recently I was involved in a discussion in which someone asked about photographing some specific icons along this part of the California coast where one person chimed in with, to paraphrase, “there’s nothing left to photograph there.” While I agree that just re-photographing that handful of familiar icons is a doubtful enterprise, this hundred-mile section of coast is so complex and diverse that I cannot imagine anyone ever being “done” with it or discovering everything it offers. I’ve photographed there for decades, and I still encounter things I haven’t seen before — including this view of the coast and successive beaches and peninsulas stretching to the south.

(Note: I’m experimenting with some changes to the way I format and present photographs online. You may see some differences in how this photograph appears.)

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

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

Edge of the Pacific

Image Leave a comment
Edge of the Pacific
Boulders and surf under clearing fog along the Big Sur coast.

Edge of the Pacific. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Boulders and surf under clearing fog along the Big Sur coast.

This photograph likely looks a bit… ambiguous. In fact, it was that sort of day along this section of the California coast. I’m generally a fan of fog when I go to photograph there, but getting just the right amount of fog in the right places takes a bit of luck — we don’t control that! I was hoping for the kind of day that starts with thick, mysterious fog but then transitions to clearing, gradually revealing features as the sun begins to appear. But that fog never fully cleared. (At one point as I was photographing a disappointed tourist stopped and more or less asked me where the Pacific Ocean was and whether or not he might be able to see it.)

Later in the afternoon the fog did begin to diminish a bit, but it remained right up against the coast. In many places when I positioned myself to photograph over the ocean, the sun was shining on the hills directly behind me as I pointed the camera into the murk at the edge fo the land. In this spot the fog had sufficiently thinned right at the coast and I was able to make out rocks right at the water’s edge… but the fog obscured and muted the more distant ocean. That distant, fuzzy line near the top of the frame is some vague, opaque combination of the horizon and fog.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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