Tag Archives: light

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Cascade, Afternoon Light

July 2, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

A back-country creek cascades across granite in afternoon light reflected from nearby rock faces, Yosemite National Park, California.

In places where a fast-moving stream drops rapidly down a glaciated granite slope (such places are found in various locations in the Yosemite high country) and the late afternoon sunlight reflects on the far side of the stream, the water can pick up the golden color of the reflected light. In this photograph I found a standing wave in the middle of turbulent section of water, and I positioned myself so that the reflected light was directly opposite my location.

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

Summer Evening, Scott Creek Beach

June 24, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Fog rolls in on a summer evening at Scott Creek Beach, on the Pacific Ocean coastline near Davenport, California.

I’m fortunate to live close enough to the California coastline that I can occasionally just decide on the spur of the moment to “drive over the hill” and step out of the world of work to watch the sunset over the Pacific. This is what I decided to do yesterday. I drove over that hill with only a vague plan to see what conditions looked like and then most likely head north from Santa Cruz toward and perhaps beyond Davenport.

I almost never know exactly what I’ll find on the coast until I get there. Yesterday I had suspicions about the possibility of fog, but I also thought that clear sky might linger a while before the fog rolled in. For the most part it turned out that there was fog but that in most places it was a good distance offshore though starting to form in closer. However, it also turned out that there was a good amount of high cloudiness blocking the sunlight. In other words, the prospects were mixed – might be interesting light at the last minute, fog might roll in and cover everything, the clouds might thicken instead of thin. So I continued with no specific images in mind, driving past various familiar locations. As I descended toward Scott Creek Beach I caught a quick glimpse of a panorama across the beach that seemed like it might work as a wide angle shot, so I quickly turned around and returned to the spot. Once I got set up I realized that while it was a beautiful scene it wasn’t going to work as a photograph. But this scene, which required a longer focal length, caught my attention instead.

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Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Parking Restricted 24 Hours A Day

June 23, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Photograph of a building wall with crack and black windows, sidewalk, and no parking sign.

This is another of those photographs that probably seems intended to perplex and baffle those who like my landscape and nature photography. (If it helps, think of it as an urban landscape.) The photograph was made not far from my home on a midday walk with my camera and a single prime lens. I shot the series from which this comes at what is usually regarded as the worst time of day for photography – close to the noon hour about a week or so before the summer solstice. And I did this on purpose! I think that any light can be good light if it is the light you want to photograph. So the game on this day was to go out and see what I could do with very harsh and bright light.

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Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Textures, Photographs: Urban/Street

Shadows on Parking Lot Wall

June 22, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Shadows from light fall across a parking lot wall.

A photograph made on a walk with a body and a 50mm lens and not much else – a walk from my home. This wall has often intrigued me, as have these small lamps up near the roof line. On this day I was out in the “terrible light” time of the day – midday, when shadows are almost as close to vertical as they get around here. Not only was I attracted to the interesting slight diagonals of the long shadows, but also to the colors of weathered green paint, deep blue sky, and the messy textures of the parking lot.

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