Tag Archives: Mountain

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Textures

September Sky Number One

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September Sky Number One - Sky above the San Francisco Bay Area, September 21, 2012
Sky above the San Francisco Bay Area, September 21, 2012

September Sky Number One. Above the San Francisco Bay Area, California. September 21, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sky above the San Francisco Bay Area, September 21, 2012

There probably isn’t a lot to say about a photograph of a small section of the September sky above northern California. I made the photograph while waiting (for three hours!) for the Space Shuttle Endeavour flyover at the NASA/Ames Research Center Moffett Field. Fortunately, it was not a typical perfect blue sky California September day – instead there were some beautiful high clouds of various sorts that were probably connected to the passage of some tropical moisture. Standing around with a bit lens on the camera and nice clouds overhead – why not photograph a few of them? :-)

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Trees and Cliff, Morning

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Trees and Cliff, Morning - Morning light spills over a high ridge to back light trees near Steelhead Lake.
Morning light spills over a high ridge to back light trees near Steelhead Lake.

Trees and Cliff, Morning. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. September 16. 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light spills over a high ridge to back light trees near Steelhead Lake.

This photograph was made from a point perhaps ten feet (or less!) from my bivy sack. We were camped at out-of-the-way Steelhead Lake, up above McGee Canyon and off the main trail to McGee Lakes and McGee Pass. While I had looked up McGee Canyon from the trailhead before – almost every year while photographing aspens, in fact – this was the first time that I had backpacked up this route and had a chance to actually explore the area. We ended up staying at this lake for two nights, providing time to do a bit of exploration and to see certain subjects that I might have missed with a shorter visit.

I had seen and photographed (though in a different way) this little clump of lakeside trees the morning before, but after thinking about them a bit more I felt that I’d like to shoot them again the next morning. The light at this lake is a bit tricky in that there is a very high ridge to the south and east that blocks the light until quite late in the morning. No morning golden hour shots at this lake! The ridge holds two of the four “railroad baron” peaks that surround Pioneer Basin – Crocker and Stanford. (The other two are Hopkins and Huntington.) A few years ago I had investigated Pioneer Basin on a separate trip and had stood on top of this very ridge and looked down towards this year’s camp. In any case, I had an idea to shoot the trees against backlight, and almost as soon as the sun appeared above this ridge I went to work. I had to shoot essentially straight into the sun in order to get the glowing atmosphere in the canyon beyond the first ridge, and even with a long focal length I was barely able to keep my hand out of the frame as I shaded to front of the lens.

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: Events, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Northern California

I Swear He is Smiling

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Smiling pilot of the carrier aircraft - Space Shuttle Endeavour Flyover - NASA Ames Moffett Field, California. A smiling pilot is visible through the cockpit window of the space shuttle Endeavour during its flyover of the NASA Ames Moffett Field
A smiling pilot is visible through the cockpit window of the space shuttle Endeavour during its flyover of the NASA Ames Moffett Field

Space Shuttle Endeavour Flyover – Smiling Pilot. NASA Ames Moffett Field, California. September 21, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A smiling pilot is visible through the cockpit window of the space shuttle Endeavour during its flyover of the NASA Ames Moffett Field.

Just for fun… this is a 100% magnification crop of a section of one of my photographs of the flyover by space shuttle Endeavour, mounted on its 747 transport aircraft. I made the photograph on September 21, 2012 as it flew over the NASA Ames Moffett Field in the San Francisco Bay Area. While working on the original photograph I was looking closely at it when I realized that the face of the pilot (co-pilot?) is visible in the cockpit window… and I swear he is grinning! :-)

(Since I know some will ask… Canon 5D2 with Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS, handheld.)

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: Flight, Photographs: Northern California

Departure – Space Shuttle Endeavour Flyover #4

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Space Shuttle Flyover - Moffett Field #4 - The space shuttle Endeavour departs after flying over the NASA/Ames Research Center Moffett Airfield
The space shuttle Endeavour departs after flying over the NASA/Ames Research Center Moffett Airfield

Departure – Space Shuttle Endeavour Flyover #4. NASA/Ames Moffett Field, California. September 21, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The space shuttle Endeavour departs after flying over the NASA/Ames Research Center Moffett Airfield.

Although I continued to shoot as the shuttle flew to the south and out of the San Francisco Bay Area, this is the last shot in the sequence that I’ll share. Although many in the ground hoped (dreamed?) that the shuttle might circle around and make a second pass – there had been rumors of a 200 ft. altitude flight down the runway – it seemed pretty likely that this was the end of the show, though what a show it had been!

In some ways I like this photograph the most, even though it certainly does not reveal as much of the detail of the space vehicle or its transport plane. On the other hand, it seems to me to be a bit more evocative of the end of this era in American space flight – the shuttle flies away in into an almost empty sky.

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.