Tag Archives: landscape

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

Beach, Fog, and Surf

June 30, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pacific ocean surf at a foggy beach near Point Sur

My part of California — generally the San Francisco Bay Area — is climatically complex, especially during the warm season. We sit between the hot interior climate of the Central Valley and points further east, and the coastal climate under the influence of the Pacific Ocean. The Bay Area is famous for its microclimate, and conditions can diverge wildly among areas that are not that far apart. A day or two ago the weather report told of temperatures well above 100 degrees along the eastern edge of the region where it spills out into the Central Valley and temperatures that never reached 60 degrees along the coast at Point Reyes — a difference of close to 50 degrees between areas separated by a few tens of miles.

The past week has been one of the periodic hot spells, so when I heard about the mid-fifty degree temperatures and fog along the coast I had to go! Today I drove down past Monterey and kept going down the Big Sur coast past Lucia. It was foggy well inland in the morning and it never did clear completely along the coast, where not only was it cold but the winds were howling and kicking up whitecaps on the ocean. I made this photograph near Point Sur, roughly along the line where the inland sun and the coastal fog were doing battle… and the fog was still winning at this point.

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: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Winter Dawn, Sacramento Valley

June 29, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Winter clouds at dawn above the Sacramento Valley

Today it is close to the end of June, the start of the hot season in California, and it has been nearly 100 degrees where I live and hotter than that where I made this photograph. It is, at it is every year, hard to believe that it was only months ago that I was out in this spot on a freezing January morning, with snow-covered peaks to my east and west, watching the first dawn light on these spectacular clouds and listening to the sounds of early morning flights of migratory birds across the wetlands.

For this I will get up at 3:00 am and drive three hours in the pre-dawn darkness. I had not visited this location before, and as I turned off of Interstate 5, the main artery up this valley, and headed east on a two-lane road I wasn’t sure what I would find. The sky was beginning to glow and it seemed that sunrise was coming soon — perhaps too soon for my arrival. I turned off onto a gravel road and headed into this refuge, passing the entrance and heading out onto the perimeter road just in time for this astonishing morning light show.

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

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Dunes Interrupted

June 27, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A curving diagonal of rock across sand dunes, Death Valley National Park

The sand dunes of Death Valley are more complex things than they might appear to be. For example, I have read that beneath their surface they actually hold quite a bit of moisture — quite a contradiction to our intuition about their dryness. (That intuition is based on fact — they can be hot and dry places, and the surface layer of the dunes is quite dry.) At the right times of day and of season they can be cool places, and they support plant and animal life.

These dunes also appear to stand on top of quite un-dune-like features. Around their edges you can find hints. You cross flat playa surface to get to them, and this surface holds abundant evidence of the work of water. In places you can even find areas that mimic perfectly the surfaces of contemporary playas, with their sedimentary formations covered with cracks. Here the edge of what must be a rather old example of this cuts diagonally across the landscape and still manages to poke its edge through the sand.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Dust Storm, Dunes, Evening Light

June 25, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A dust storm rages above sand dunes at the end of the day, Death Valley National Park

This was a wild evening, featuring an apocalyptic combination of tremendously strong winds, huge clouds of blowing sand and dust, periodic downpours of rain, and light that changed constantly from ominous and dark to luminous clouds backlit by sun to threads of virgo, and more. I had never seen quite this combination of conditions in Death Valley at one time.

Photography was quite challenging. Because sunset was approaching (and I continued to photograph into the dusk), it was often quite dark. The screaming winds made it virtually impossible to shoot from the tripod, so I was mostly reduced to bracing my camera against the window frame of my vehicle and working with the camera handheld. In the rough conditions I was forced to work from a distance with a long lens, since photographing inside the windblown clouds of dust and sand was not a good idea. Here the clouds and the dust above the sand dunes momentarily thinned, creating a backlit glow from the low angle sun about to drop behind mountains to the west.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: landscape

Beach, Fog, and Surf

Winter Dawn, Sacramento Valley

Dunes Interrupted

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