Tag Archives: mist

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

Shoreline Trees and Mist

May 12, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Silhouettes of shoreline trees on a misty morning at Tomales Bay, California

This photograph was made along the shoreline of Tomales Bay, near Inverness, California and north of San Francisco very near to the Point Reyes National Seashore. I was there, in fact, to visit Point Reyes. As I passed through the Inverness area, the sun rose over the fog-shrouded hills of Marin County, and I decided to stop right there, short of my actual goal, and make some photographs in this interesting early morning light.

Looking to my left and toward the northern entrance to Tomales Bay, everything was front- or side-lit, the sun shone brightly, colors were intense, and the fog was clearing. Looking to my right, I was facing directly into the rising sun and seeing it through the misty remnants of fog along the Marin hills, and the colors were washed out by the atmosphere and bright light. I used a long lens to pick out this row of shoreline trees from the larger landscape and to be able to make a photograph that excluded the sun itself. But it was still very bright. Mist rises off of the foreground water of the bay and a bit of fog still lurks beyond the trees. To look at this photograph you might think you are seeing a monochrome image that has been sepia toned… but this is the actual color of the light in these conditions.

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.

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

Fog and Forested Ridges

May 9, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Winter fog envelops forested ridges near Mount Tamalpais on the Pacific coast north of San Francisco

I photographed this scene on an early February day when the atmosphere was especially murky north of San Francisco. I had traveled this way for the day with some very general ideas about photographic subjects, but once I got “there” quite a few of those ideas looked a lot less promising. I had initially thought about photographing inside the coastal redwood forest, but when I arrived at my intended location I found that everything was gray, gray, gray! The atmosphere was hazy and murky and high clouds blocked any interesting light from the sun. So figured I might try for something moody along the coast, but there I found the same very difficult light.

I finally headed back up into the Marin hills, hoping that I might get up above the thickest of the gray and possibly get some light filtered through the high clouds and perhaps some longer views. As I entered the Mount Tamalpais State Park and started to ascend the road toward the peak, I finally came out of the coastal fog – though the overhead clouds remained. As I went up this road I looked for spots with some sort of longer view of the fog bank from which I had just emerged, and I finally found it along a bend where the road passed an area of open meadows and rolling hills. Here there was a line of sight back toward the ocean – completely obscured by fog – and the bits of lower hills that were poking through the tops of the clouds. On a technical note, this is not a monochrome or black and white photograph. It is, however, somewhat desaturated. One of the side effects of this difficult atmosphere was a very blue quality to the light that became much more apparent in the photograph than it appeared to a viewer on the scene. I knew I would have to deal with this in post in order to get an effect that seemed appropriate and believable. My initial thinking was to actually make it a black and white photograph, but as I worked with the image I came to feel that it worked better if some degree of muted color was retained.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Cliffs and Fog, Morning

May 5, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Zion Canyon cliffs in clearing fog — “Cliffs and Fog, Morning” — Cliffs of Zion Canyon emerge from morning fog

This is a somewhat different photograph of a scene that I previously shared. The earlier version featured a closer view of the pinnacle near the right of this frame – this one backs off a bit and shows more of the overall cliff face. We had arrived at Zion National Park the previous day, coming across Arizona in very rainy weather to enter this park in light rain in the afternoon. On the way over the Mount Carmel Highway to Springdale, where we would stay that night, we had photographed the wet high country sandstone as the rain came to an end.

On this morning the clouds from that rain storm had not quite left as we rode one of the very early shuttles into Zion Canyon with a plan to photograph further up the canyon. But as the shuttle entered the lower canyon I was intrigued – as I always am! – but mist and clouds swirling around the upper slopes of the canyon walls. Aside from the much more colorful red rock here, the scene reminded me a lot of what I frequently see in Yosemite Valley during stormy weather. The timing was just right in relation to the clouds and the light. As the sun came up behind my camera position, the clouds had cleared over the center of the valley allowing the morning light to shine under the mist swirling around the upper cliff face, so while the highest ridge was still darkened by the clouds, the lower face was increasingly lit by the morning light as the clouds rose and began to clear away.

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.

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Coastal Valley, Morning Light

May 2, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early morning light streams across ridges and illuminates mist filling a coastal valley along the Big Sur coastline of California

This might be described as “yet another in a series” of photographs made along the Pacific Coast Highway south of Monterey, in which I look for canyons filled with misty early morning light, aim my camera up into the canyon, and see what I can come up with. The elements are: fog that it thin enough to pass light, early morning back-light spilling over the tops of coastal ridges, canyons and valleys with many overlapping ridges, lush and green coastal vegetation. The variations are endless. The challenges are finding canyons with just the right combinations of these elements and, of course, shooting straight into the light, a favorite technique of mine.

This little valley is one that you would most likely pass by and not even see, since it is small and in a section of the coast where you attention is likely to be drawn the other way and toward the Pacific ocean. I’ve seen this spot a few times as I have driven past, but I had assumed that it might not be photograph-able given some power lines and the scarcity of places to pull over and park. This time I looked a bit closer and thought I saw a way to shoot from alongside the highway and perhaps avoid the wires and I did see a small pull-out nearby, so I turned around at the next opportunity, came back, and spent a bit of time working this scene.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: mist

Shoreline Trees and Mist

Cliffs and Fog, Morning

Coastal Valley, Morning Light

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