Tag Archives: landscape

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

Sunset Light, Sea Stacks

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Sunset Light, Sea Stacks
Sunset light on sea stacks off the coast of Crescent City, California.

Sunset Light, Sea Stacks. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sunset light on sea stacks off the coast of Crescent City, California.

We recently returned from a few days along California’s far northern coast. We spent a couple of nights in Crescent City before moving south to stay in the Eureka area for a couple more days. We were mostly there to photograph the redwoods, but there was a lot more to see and photograph than just that subject. (In fact, one of our primary targets, the annual rhododendron bloom, was not producing a lot of flowers during our visit.)

The coastal area in Crescent City is quite spectacular, from the ocean just below the road running along its edge to the distant view of the infamous St. George Reef lighthouse. I have photographed from the residential area at the end of town before, and since we were there in the evening we decided to head that way again on this evening. The light was beautiful and evolving nicely… but it was clear that the clouds of a weather front to the northwest would block the last light. So I quickly set up this photograph and made two exposures as the final direct light hit the coast.

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.

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

Morning Fog, Rocks, and Surf

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Morning Fog, Rocks, and Surf
The surf rolls in on a quiet, foggy morning along the coast north of Santa Cruz, California near Waddell Creek.

Morning Fog, Rocks, and Surf. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The surf rolls in on a quiet, foggy morning along the coast north of Santa Cruz, California near Waddell Creek.

As we begin to come to terms with the near-end of the Covid-19 crisis in my part of the world — the San Francisco Bay Area — it begins to seem more possible to simply get up, make decision about a destination, and head out for the day. (I do understand that I’m particularly fortunate to live in a place where vaccination rates are very high.) Probably the most likely subject on my “Hey, I’ll go photograph today!” list is the Pacific Ocean coastline, which I can reach as quickly as a bit more than a half hour.

Objectively speaking, there was nothing all that special or unusual about this May morning. The fog, typical at this time of year, blanketed the coast and slid inland to the tops of coastal hills. As I drove a section of the Pacific Coast Highway north of Santa Cruz the fog began to break up in spots, though few people were there to see it on this weekday morning. After I turned around and started back I passed by this spot and noticed the pile of rocks extending across the beach in front of the shallow bay filled with waves leading to distant sea stacks and bluffs.

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.

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

Pacific Horizon, Autumn

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Pacific Horizon, Autumn
Brilliant autumn sun reflects from the surface of the Pacific Ocean, Big Sur.

Pacific Horizon, Autumn. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Brilliant autumn sun reflects from the surface of the Pacific Ocean, Big Sur.

For almost my entire life (since my family moved to California from the Upper Midwest when I was four years old) I have lived within hailing distance of the Pacific Ocean and the western shoreline of the North American continent. Although I don’t live literally on the coast — a range of coastal mountains separates me from it — the Pacific is ever-present. That’s where our big winter storms come from. Fog from the coast cools us when the temperatures are in the 100’s further inland. Drives take me past the San Francisco Bay and the rivers emptying into it. And when I need a quick escape I can be over those coastal hills and at the ocean in less than one hour.

This photograph comes from a late-autumn pandemic-era day trip down the coast into what I think of as the “Big Sur coast” below Monterey and Carmel. These visits, as short as they were, reminded me that the natural world was still there and still doing more or less what it had always done. We think of this coast as running north/south, but it actually cuts inward to the east as you travel down it. Because of this, by noon I can photograph straight into the blinding light of the sun reflected on the surface of the sea.

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.

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

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Storm Clouds Above The Crest

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Storm Clouds Above The Crest
Dark clouds beyond the crest while morning light shines on the east slope of the Sierra Nevada.

Storm Clouds Above The Crest. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dark clouds beyond the crest while morning light shines on the east slope of the Sierra Nevada.

This should be a fine photograph in this series made in early morning light in the eastern Sierra Nevada above Bishop, CA. The morning began before dawn in extremely soft and blue-tinted light. Then the first direct light came through a narrow gap between the White Mountains and the clouds behind me and gradually spread down the escarpment of the Sierra. I continued photographing as this process unfolded, and by the time I made this photograph the direct light had arrived at my location and the deep golden color of the dawn light was dissipating.

Locations like this one are among the best to understand the immense size of the Sierra and the height of the crest. Far behind my camera position and quite a bit lower lies the Owens Valley, but even from this higher vantage point the steep faces of the peaks are formidable. On this morning the clouds added another dimension to the show. Up higher, above the area of this composition, gently curving clouds mirrored the shapes of the ridges. Below those clouds lay the dramatically dark form directly above the peaks, as seen in the photograph.

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.

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