Tag Archives: monterey

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

Rocky Islands, Fog, and Surf

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Rocky Islands, Fog, and Surf - Brightly sunlit fog blankets rocky islands and high surf, Point Lobos.
Brightly sunlit fog blankets rocky islands and high surf, Point Lobos.

Rocky Islands, Fog, and Surf. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. March 29, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Brightly sunlit fog blankets rocky islands and high surf, Point Lobos.

The conditions were wildly changeable on this early afternoon at Point Lobos. I had originally been shooting at a more protected location in the park where it was mostly sunny, though with the sun partially obscured by high, thin clouds. After finishing with my shooting in that location I decided to head out toward the more exposed coastline just south of the “Point” itself before leaving, and when I got there I found that the fog back was perhaps only a few hundred yards offshore and was already beginning to obscure some of the rocks.

I hurried a bit to the south to a point where the view might be clear toward Bird Island and the Carmel Highlands, thinking that I might get some long distance shots before the fog closed it or, better yet, as it came in. Sure enough, I arrived at a good spot to work from while the rocks were still clearly visible against the backdrop of the fog, which was brightly lit from behind by the sun. I set up my tripod, mounted a very long lens, and attached the camera, and looked back at the view to find… that the rocks had virtually disappeared as the fog moved in more quickly that I expected. Still, by waiting for momentary clearing in the mist, I was able to make a few very foggy photographs of these large off-shore rocks, almost obscured by the incoming fog.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Forest, Morning Light

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Forest, Morning Light - Morning light shines into forest at the top of bluffs above the Pacific Ocean, Point Lobos State Reserve.
Morning light shines into forest at the top of bluffs above the Pacific Ocean, Point Lobos State Reserve.

Forest, Morning Light. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. March 29, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light shines into forest at the top of bluffs above the Pacific Ocean, Point Lobos State Reserve.

These forests at Point Lobos are often very appealing places to be, but I find them to be difficult to photograph! They are full of light in the right conditions – while the trees can grow somewhat close together, they tend to form a relatively open canopy that lets the light in. There is often moss hanging down from branches. Various plants grow along the ground – though watch out for the poison oak! And, of course, when you are actually there the constant sound of the surf is never far away, the air is cool, and there is often at least some breeze.

But some of these same attractive features are the source of (for me, anyway) the challenges of photographing these forests. The light, as beautiful as it is, can be very tricky. Because of the thin canopy of the trees, the direct sunlight often makes it down into the lower reaches of the forest and hits trunks and branches, creating spots of very bright light that are hard to manage. I could photograph (and have done so) in overcast or foggy conditions… but there goes that light. And the dense growth makes it difficult to find compositions that show the larger forest itself rather than just isolated elements of it. But on this visit high, thin clouds came to the rescue. While they were thin enough to allow directional sun light into the forest, they were just opaque enough to take the harsh edge off of the light.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Coal Chute Point and The Pit

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Coal Chute Point and The Pit - Coal Chute Point, the Pit, and the rugged shoreline of Point Lobos State Reserve, California.
Coal Chute Point and The Pit - Coal Chute Point, the Pit, and the rugged shoreline of Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

Coal Chute Point and The Pit. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. March 29, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Coal Chute Point, the Pit, and the rugged shoreline of Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

(Shortly after posting this, another photographer wrote to suggest that I might consider renaming the image to “Point and Chute.” ;-)

For all the years – decades, actually, and more than a few – that I’ve been visiting Point Lobos, there are still places that I have not gotten around to visiting within the boundaries of the park. Among them are some headlands not far from Whalers Cove that I’ve looked at for a long time… and then always headed off to some other part of the reserve without visiting them. Earlier this week I visited Point Lobos with no particular goal in mind aside from making some photographs, and I somehow finally ended up in this picturesque area that offers some quite different views from those found in the areas that more directly face out into the Pacific. (While it is, indeed, picturesque… the place names are not. Coal Chute Point? The Pit?)

The light in this photograph is somewhat subdued, at least in comparison to some of the photographs you might see of such a place, typically shot in the evening when the sky is at its most colorful. (Yes, I’ve certainly made my share of those photographs at Point Lobos, too!) But this light had a different sort of appeal, and it continuously changed during my half day there. When I arrived some fog was just clearing near the coast. It was a strange pattern – fog way inlands that looked more like the typical winter valley tule fog than the summer coastal fog. In fact, as is frequently the case in winter, it was clear at the coast. But somewhat surprisingly there was a regular old fog bank lurking a ways off the shoreline – and later in the day it moved in on the coast. Along with this there were high, thin clouds from a weather front that was passing well to the north. These conditions can still provide directional light but light which is softer and can fill in the shadows a bit – making it possible to shoot in places and at times of the day when the light might otherwise be too harsh. For this photograph I decided to “go wide,” and shoot with a 24mm focal length of a full frame DSLR to accentuate the distance between the foreground beach and the distant horizon and to include the full width of the curving wave as it broke on the beach.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Fog, Surf, and Rocks

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Fog, Surf, and Rocks - Midday sun glows through coastal fog bank above offshore rocks and surf, Point Lobos State Reserve.
Midday sun glows through coastal fog bank above offshore rocks and surf, Point Lobos State Reserve.

Fog, Surf, and Rocks. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. March 29, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Midday sun glows through coastal fog bank above offshore rocks and surf, Point Lobos State Reserve.

I made a new photograph in the “barely there” series today at Point Lobos. It was a surprisingly good photography day at Point Lobos. I say this because when I started out this morning things did not look very promising at all. At my home, it was cloudy and gray – but since at least one weather forecast mentioned sun down in the Monterey Peninsula area, I decided to give it a try. As I drove south it got worse – I ended up in very thick fog during the first 30 minutes or so of my drive. However, recalling that when there is inland fog this time of year there is often clearing at the coast, I decided to keep going. A few miles from Monterey the skies began to clear, leaving some pockets of fog here and there with high thin clouds above. Now things were looking up! High, thin clouds can provide excellent conditions for many kinds of landscape shooting, since these conditions soften that shadows and take the harsh edge off of the light.

Arriving at Point Lobos I could see there was fog a good distance off shore, but beautiful light was shining through the forest along the entrance road. I headed down to Whalers Cove and went for a hike around the far side of the cove, and ended up spending the better part of three hours poking around in this area. By the time I got back to my car it was lunch time, and I decided to at least head out to the west-facing shoreline to look around before leaving. When I got there, the offshore fog bank had moved in and was starting to flow across the shoreline. A bit further south I could see the backlit fog lit brilliantly by the sun and almost obscuring the rocks and islands in the Bird Island area. In fact, by the time I got my camera on the tripod, these islands had completely disappeared. I waited a bit, and their shapes began to again barely emerge from the fog.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.