Tag Archives: mountains

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Drifting Fog, Hills

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Drifting Fog, Hills
Dawn fog pours across arid California hills

Drifting Fog, Hills. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dawn fog pours across arid California hills.

Sometimes I end up completely throwing out my photographic plans for the day. When I awoke in the pre-dawn darkness on this day, I intended to head down from camp to a plain and lower hills where I would photograph spring wildflowers. I fixed coffee and had a bowl of cereal in the dark, loaded up my vehicle, tried to sneak out of camp without bothering the “normal” people who sleep in, and heading down the gravel road. As I drove it began to look like the valley was, to my complete surprise, completely socked in by thick fog.

Before entering the upper limit of the fog I stopped at a turn on a hillside from which there was a panoramic view. Far to the southeast I saw that the fog was even in the mountains, and that gentle morning breeze was apparently pushing it up and over a series of high ridges just as the first reddish light of dawn intensified. I quickly put my wildflower photography ideas on hold and went to work photographing the ephemeral fog and light.

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 and Amazon.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Green HIlls, Morning Mist

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Green HIlls, Morning Mist
Morning fog and mist above green spring hills

Green HIlls, Morning Mist. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning fog and mist above green California spring hills.

Many people who visit California for the first time are surprised by how dry much of the state is for most of the year. In many places — most of Southern California, the deserts, the Central Valley, coastal hills, even along portions of the coast — the predominant colors from late spring through autumn are golden and brown. What they don’t know, but may learn over repeated visits, is that much of the state passes through a miraculously green interval every year during late winter and early spring. During this time that dry, brown terrain becomes “impossibly green” for a short period.

This week I visited one of those places that seems desert-like during most of the year. Following recent rains there was mud everywhere, and even the driest of hills was sprouting new green growth. I camped up in a valley above a large plain, and when I arose in pre-dawn light I swore that this arid valley appeared to be full of fog. I broke camp in near-darkness, and as I drove down I entered the fog bank, which soon began to drift and thin in early sunlight, revealing this landscape of overlapping slopes, edges marked by the low-angle light.

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 and Amazon.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

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

Dunes and Desert Hills, Evening

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Dunes and Desert Hills, Evening
Evening light on dunes and eroded desert hills in Death Valley National Park

Dunes and Desert Hills, Evening. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening light on dunes and eroded desert hills in Death Valley National Park.

This view is probably at least somewhat familiar to most who have visited Death Valley, though some may have overlooked it while paying more attention to a more famous nearby feature. The scene incorporates several elements that are “classic” Death Valley: the low dunes in the foreground, the large expanse of low-angle on the other side of the dunes, and the denuded desert hills and mountains ascending beyond that.

I found myself in the particular location from which I made the photograph as the result of some last-minute scrambling to deal with problematic light. Originally I was planning to photograph in sand dunes in the late-day and evening light. However, when I arrived I found that a large cloud had “turned out the lights” on that scene, and I wasn’t sure if it would move in time. So I tried a different strategy — rather than focus on one small subject I found a place from which I could see the vast expanse of the entire upper valley, and then I waited for various areas to be spotlighted by beams of light breaking through the clouds. A brief moment of light slanted across the low dunes and onto the hills across the valley just before the sun dropped behind mountains to my west.

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 and Amazon.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Winter Clouds and Light, Big Sur Coast

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Winter Clouds and Light, Big Sur Coast
Cloudy, hazy atmosphere with dissipating fog and light ahead of an incoming Pacific storm along the Big Sur coast

Winter Clouds and Light, Big Sur Coast. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Cloudy, hazy atmosphere with dissipating fog and light ahead of an incoming Pacific storm along the Big Sur coast.

Every time I visit the Big Sur coastline, to be honest, I think that I’m going to discover that there isn’t much new to see. After all, I’ve been visiting for literally decades, since I was a child and my parents took us there on family trips. Yet every single time I find something I haven’t seen before — a new overlook, a different condition of atmosphere and light, a side road I hadn’t noticed, a cliff-side home where I had not see one, some new color in the water.

I’m pretty sure that I’ve stopped and photographed in this spot or close to it before, but this light was different from anything I recall. It was an unusual combination of conditions. In the far distance the clouds of an incoming weather system darkened the southern sky. (Typically, it remains light in that direction longer as fronts approach.) There was a bit of fog under an inversion layer… which I wouldn’t usually expect to see as an arriving front increases the onshore winds. Despite the darker clouds, a bit closer to me there was filtered sunlight reflecting off the water. And the entire scene was softened by a slightly opaque atmosphere.

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 and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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