Tag Archives: morning

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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Cliffs, Morning Light

May 11, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Immense cliffs in the Pine Creek Canyon area of Zion National Park.

This was an interesting morning, as much for its place in the sequence of events on this trip to photograph in Utah as for the actual photographic opportunities. I have noticed, and other photographers I’ve spoken with about this seem to agree to at least some extent, that there is sometimes a sort of “getting up to speed” element to certain types of shooting when you are getting started. I recall mentioning this to one photographer friend in the context of a discussion about the idea that you should always have a clear vision for your photograph before you make it – a theoretical concept that most photographers I know acknowledge to be unrealistic and perhaps even a bad idea. (This is not to say that thinking about what your “capture” may look like as a photograph is unimportant, but rather an acknowledgement that things are often more complex than the simplistic notion suggests and that sometimes we, quite honestly, don’t really know for sure which images will work or why.) When the idea of waiting for a really good image before making a photograph came up, I shared the observation that I sometimes have to “prime the pump” but simply starting to make some photographs, even if I’m not convinced that the first ones will be great. (One friend then referred to this as “photographic foreplay.” ;-)

The previous day we had driven to St. George, Utah from the San Francisco Bay Area – a LONG drive – and finally stumbled into a motel in St. George close to midnight. (As I recall, the motel advertised something like “The Cheapest Rooms in St. George!”) Up in the morning for precisely the free breakfast that you might expect in such a place – I resisted and instead walked across the street to a Starbucks – we left early and headed into Zion. As I recall we did not spend much, if any, time in Zion Canyon, and we were soon heading up the Mount Carmel highway, still having made no photographs. Finally, as we turned a few switchbacks on the initial climb, we saw some interesting light on the cliffs across the canyon, pulled over, got our cameras and lenses and tripods and made some photographs. I’m not sure that any of them were exactly remarkable, but with this first “shoot” (priming the pump) our work was now underway.

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

Morning Fog, Tomales Bay

May 3, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light on fog shrouded green hills along the shores of Tomales Bay, California

I made this photograph just after dawn on a beautiful February morning along the shore of Tomales Bay near Inverness, California, while on my way to the Point Reyes National Seashore. That I was here in this spot was the result of slightly poor planning. I had awakened three hours before dawn so that I could drive up here and, or so I hoped, be out at Point Reyes near the lighthouse at dawn and photograph the outer edges of Drakes Bay in the very early morning light. I miscalculated the driving time and didn’t get out the door quite as quickly as I planned, and by the time I was approaching Tomales Bay I knew that the sun was going to be up well before I got to my original goal.

As I drove through the redwood forest approaching the coast it was very foggy, a bit to my surprise since the forecast had not mentioned this. At first I thought that the fog might extend the early morning shooting a bit, but as I arrived near Olema and then headed out on the road along Tomales Bay, it was clear (literally!) that the fog was lifting and that if I was going to shoot the early light it had to be right then and there. I pulled over at a spot where some interesting buildings stand in the shallow waters along the shoreline, unloaded my gear and walked a bit to make some shots here. I was surprised by the cold. Here by the water, where the nighttime temperature are typically moderated quite a bit, it was about 30 degrees! The first light was beginning to angle across the low, green hills on the other side of the bay as the wispy fog began to disperse, so I made a simple photograph of the water of the bay, with water plants in the foreground, the color gradient fading from dark blue to near white, and the hills beyond.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: morning

Shoreline Trees and Mist

Cliffs, Morning Light

Cliffs and Fog, Morning

Morning Fog, Tomales Bay

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