Tag Archives: monterey

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

Kelp Detail #2, Weston Beach

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Kelp Detail #2, Weston Beach
Kelp Detail #2, Weston Beach

Kelp Detail #2, Weston Beach. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. January 16, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Detail of kelp and other debris (“wrack”) washed up by winter storms at Weston Beach, Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

Perhaps putting more trust in the words of the weatherman than was appropriate, I slept in on this morning, having heard the night before that it was going to rain. But when I got up the sun was shining, and I realized that I should have been out shooting! After taking care of a few morning chores, I managed to get away and drive down to the coast. I didn’t have a specific plan besides “the coast,” but as I drove I kept an eye on the sky since the weather from was starting to come ashore and high clouds were beginning to diffuse the light.

As I got near Monterey I figured I might as well take a look at Point Lobos, even though it seemed like the clouds might be starting to build along the coast – I figured that if it turned out to be too cloudy there I could just come back by way of Moss Landing. At Point Lobos the seas were fairly high and very choppy and the high clouds still hadn’t thickened so much as to cut off the light – although at times it got a bit murky, in between there was soft light diffused by high, translucent clouds. I started shooting the more distant landscapes from low bluffs near Weston Beach, working in the wind and the spray from the high surf. After doing this for a while I decided that I’d head a bit south before the time for my short visit ran out. As I walked around the curve of the edge of Weston Beach (which still seems to me like it really should be called Weston Cove – there isn’t much of a “beach” there at all) I saw that a lot of seaweed and kelp debris had been washed up by earlier high surf, and I decided to wander around there for a bit looking for interesting compositions that included the sandstone rocks and the kelp.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Point Lobos and Beyond

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The weather service was reporting very large surf along the Pacific coast today, so I decided to head down towards Point Lobos and do some photography. It seems that I wasn’t the only one! Point Lobos was so packed that there was no parking left, and many cars were parked out on the highway. I changed plans, kept driving south, and ended up shooting along the Big Sur coast instead.

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

Sea Lions and Gulls, Sunset – Point Lobos

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Sea Lions and Gulls, Sunset - Point Lobos

Sea Lions and Gulls, Sunset – Point Lobos. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. November 22, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sea lions and gulls on offshore rocks at sunset in heavy surf – Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

As I photographed this group of offshore rocks in heavy surf near sunset, a group of gulls suddenly came into the scene and tried to land on the sea-lion-covered rocky island. The season beginning at about this time of year until early spring is my favorite for photographing the California coastline – the time when the great Pacific Ocean weather fronts roll through and bring huge surf conditions.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Offshore Squall and Layered Clouds, Point Lobos

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Offshore Squall and Layered Clouds, Point Lobos.

Offshore Squall and Layered Clouds, Point Lobos. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. November 22, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white seascape photograph of a passing offshore squall and layered clouds at Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

This is a somewhat subjective impression of a scene that I witnessed last weekend late in the day along the California coastline as a small weather front passed Point Lobos, causing the weather to quickly switch from sun to brief showers and back to sun. Here the foreground water is in shadow, rain is falling from a luminous stratified cloud and being illuminated from behind. Conditions changed rapidly and this effect was gone in a moment.

This image belongs to a category I like to describe as “imaginary landscapes.” The scene is real and nothing has been added nor taken away, but the photograph has been post-processed in order to create a more subjective view of the scene that I had in mind – it corresponds to something I saw in the scene, but I did not restrict myself to trying to produce an objectively “real” version of the scene.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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