Tag Archives: morning

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

Coit Tower, Fog

December 23, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Here is one more in this series of photographs of the San Francisco waterfront and downtown areas in brightly back-lit, early morning conditions with the City nearly obscured by drifting fog. All of the photographs in the series were made from a location near the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, just a bit up the road into the Marin Headlands. Like several of the others, this one was shot with a 400mm focal length lens, pointing almost directly toward the rising sun. For some of the exposures I had to stand a couple feet in front of the camera, at the maximum extension of my remote release cable, and carefully position my hand to shade the front element of the lens.

Here the fog has almost completely obscured Coit Tower at the top of Telegraph Hill. If you look very carefully to the left of Coit Tower you can barely make out the ghostly image of the top of one of the towers of the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge. It was my good fortune that a slightly less opaque section of the drifting fog momentarily framed the summit of Telegraph Hill.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

San Francisco Skyline, Light Beams

December 21, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Beams of light from brilliantly lit clouds send beams of light past downtown San Francisco buildings and toward the waterfront.

Anyone who knows San Francisco might be wondering about this light – and I wouldn’t blame them. These were really unusual conditions. Believe it or not, the photograph was made very early in the morning, perhaps a bit less than a half hour after sunrise. Which begs a couple of questions: why is the light coming from the right (west to southwest) at dawn? And, why does the light seem to be coming from such a high angle?

The light beams are not direct sunlight. The sun is actually far to the left of the frame and very low in the sky. Its direct light was blocked by intervening fog clouds. As the clouds moved from left to right, thinner areas in the cloud cover were struck from behind by the very low angle sunlight coming from the left and set aglow. It was the brilliant light from these areas of backlit clouds that cast the light through the mist and between buildings. What you cannot see in the still photograph is that as the clouds moved the beams of light slowly swept from right to left. From moment to moment the light beams would angle from right to left, then straight down, and then left to right.

Another amazing thing was that I appeared to be the only person out making photographs of this…

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.

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

Fog, San Francisco, Dawn

December 20, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Winter fog illuminated by dawn light engulfs the skyline of San Francisco.

The conditions changed radically during the half hour or so during which I stopped on my way to Muir Woods to photograph the San Francisco skyline from above the Golden Gate Bridge. I was initially concerned that the morning would be too clear, since I am usually more interested in scenes with varied atmosphere. When I arrived it was mostly clear, though there was a bit of low fog out over the bay and some low clouds clustered above San Francisco, especially the downtown area where the tops of buildings were in the clouds.

I made a series of photographs of the skyline using my longest lens – others may appear here before long. This was one of the last ones I was able to make as the clouds thickened and eventually blocked my view completely. (What had started as a largely bright and clear early morning eventually evolved into a very foggy 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.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Morning Clouds Above the Manifold, Zabriskie Point

December 12, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 9 Comments

Morning clouds fill the sky above the Manifold at Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park.

I posted a monochrome version of this photograph yesterday, so there is perhaps a bit less to say about it in this post. To recap briefly, this is a photograph I made over three years ago during a spring visit to Death Valley NPS. This was a bit of a different morning for photographing at Zabriskie Point, if I recall correctly. Usually, photographing here is pretty straightforward – and once you’ve shot it a couple times in “normal” conditions, there is a basic pattern to the progression of light that becomes fairly (though perhaps not totally) clear. Normal conditions here basically mean perfectly clear skies with the sun coming up to the left from the perspective of this photograph or behind in some of the other familiar shots that include Manley Beacon – and light that sequentially illuminates subjects beginning with the highest peaks of the Panamint Range across the Valley and gradually working down into the Valley and finally to the rugged shapes at Zabriskie Point itself.

But clouds can change everything. If I am going to shoot at Zabriskie, I watch for conditions that will bring them. I will generally not stop there if it is “another beautiful clear sunrise” at Zabriskie. (If you haven’t been there before, you should stop and take in this stunning scene, but I’m often looking for something a bit different.) While the results in clear conditions are relatively predictable, they are not at all as predictable when there are clouds. You can end up with something very special… or with a drab, flat, and gray scene. But that’s the thing about special conditions – they wouldn’t be special if they were predictable and frequent!

Thinking back to this morning, my recollection is that it may have been one of those when I arrived to think, “Oh, boy, clouds!” – only to think a bit later, “I wish those clouds would move and give me some light!” I recall some bits of dawn light that were mostly blocked by the clouds. But the very clouds that blocked the hoped-for first dawn light thoughtfully assembled themselves into these impressive forms just a bit later, at right about the time that the warm side-light was getting down into the rugged folds of the Manifold and Gower Wash.

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.

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