Tag Archives: north

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

Bluff, Tidal Flats, Tomales Bay

October 20, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening along the shoreline of Tomales Bay

This is another photograph from our very recent visit to areas of California just north of San Francisco. If you follow the news, that description perhaps calls to mind the recent (and current, as I write this) major wildfires burning in California, including the disastrous fire in the Santa Rosa area that killed dozens of people and destroyed thousands of homes and other structures. In fact, we were very close to that area on this trip. We might not have gone at all, except that one of the reasons for going there was to participate in a wedding — and since the wedding went on despite the first, we went. We had planned a few days after that for photography, and we decided to stick to that plan, too.

The effects of the fires were obvious in many ways: signs in shops and elsewhere about people needing a place to stay or raising funds for fire relief, the traffic heading to the coast to try to find relief from the smoke, and the constant presence of that smoke in the air. We ended up doing much less photography than we usually would, but on one day we did manage to make a few photographs. We had driven north up that coast a ways, turning around just north of Jenner where the smoke became quite severe, and we were returning to the area around Point Reyes National Seashore. We arrived alongside upper Tomales Bay, which separates Point Reyes from the rest of California, not long before sunset. Here the smoke thinned a bit, mostly just producing some atmospheric haze, and the scene was quiet and still in the early evening light.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Edge of the Meadow

October 19, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

High elevation trees at the edge of a subalpine meadow, with alpine peaks beyond

As often happens at busy photographic times of the year, I have a set of projects that I’m working on simultaneously right now. Some come from photography I have done as recently as the current week, while other come from work that I did as long as a couple of months ago. Along those lines, I still am working on photographs from our late-August and early September visit to a special Sierra Nevada backcountry location, where a group of us spent more than a week base-camped near a region with an unbelievable wealth of photographic subjects to explore. Today’s photograph comes from that trip.

We were camped for more than a week at a lake just a bit lower in elevation than the location of this photograph. On almost every day we visiting this general area, either focusing on it as the subject or passing by it on our way to other higher places. On this day I had gotten up rather early and explored the area as the first sunlight began to fall on the distant peaks, the meadow, and the trees surrounding it. My recollection is that this was probably one of the last photographs of the morning before I headed back to base-camp, and I’m certain that we were close to the conclusion of our trip. The foreground meadow was typically our main subject here. When we arrived a week from the end of August we were surprised to find it still completely green and filled with wildflowers. The flowers were still there when I made this photograph, but already the late-summer brown meadow color was appearing.

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

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

Evening, Wildfire Smoke, Tomales Bay

October 18, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Wildfire smoke from northern California wildfires colors the evening sky at upper Tomales Bay

In what is perhaps an example of astonishingly bad timing, we were in the region just north of San Francisco for the past few days — near the areas afflicted by the terrible wildfires that have taken lives, destroyed property, and burned over huge swathes of wild land and agricultural areas. The scope of the damage is virtually unprecedented in California, and the events are not yet over as I write this. We were in Petaluma on Friday and most of Saturday, where Patty was to participate in a long-planned wedding of one of her former oboe students. The fires were close enough to Petaluma that breathing masks were provided to those attending the wedding, and at times ash fell from the sky like very light snow flurries.

On Saturday we moved closer to Point Reyes National Seashore. Our original plan had been to spend a couple of days photographing there, but the conditions were not conducive to photography for the most part. We visited the Seashore on Sunday, but the smoke and the naturally brown October conditions, combined with a complete lack of moody for or other clouds left us a bit uninspired. We found a few things to photograph, but we finally decided to just drive north up that coast a ways. We got just past Jenner, where the smoke become even thicker — and we turned around. The smoke was not the only evidence of the fires. Signs were up everywhere — restaurants and similar places — with announcements of fund-raisers, requests for donation, notes from people looking for a place to stay. It was also clear the folks from inland had headed out toward the ocean to try to escape the fires. We left Jenner and headed back toward our lodgings in the Point Reyes area, and just at sunset we arrived at upper Tomales Bay. It was quiet and still as we stopped at a high point from which we could look out over the bay and north toward its mouth. It was still smokey, but here the smoke merely softened the features of the landscape and added color to the sky and the reflecting water.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Grove in Shade

October 17, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A hillside grove of autumn aspens in early morning shadows

I think there may be at least a couple of things worth discussing about this photograph — both from a slightly technical point of view and from an “opportunity” perspective, as in what photographic opportunities might be available in this part of the Sierra when focusing on the subject of autumn aspen trees. The technical issue (though it really turns out to be an aesthetic issue in the end) is one that I’ve discussed before, namely the kinds of light in which one can photograph aspen and other fall color. This photograph was made in fairly deep shade, and the trees stand on a slope of a tall mountain that blocks the morning sun until several hours after sunrise. I went here largely because of that — and the beautiful trees! — because I wanted to photograph in this soft light. Photographing these trees in shade reduces the huge contrast in light levels between highlights and shadows that we must deal with when the trees are lit directly by the sun. The intensity of the colors can increase and the light fills in the shadows, revealing details that disappear in harsh midday light. (One challenge is handling the blue quality of light that comes from the open sky, but that is perhaps a topic for another post.)

The second observation has to do with the types of aspen trees found in the Sierra. People who have seen the huge groves to straight and tall aspens in places like Colorado and Utah often remark on the many small and twisted aspens in the eastern Sierra. They are right to do so — many of “our” aspens are shorter, the groves frequently (though not always) are limited in their extent, and the tall and straight trees are less common. However, that is part of what I like about the Sierra aspens — the variety of “aspen personalities” is remarkable, ranging from brilliantly colorful but very small scrub aspens to some examples of tall and straight trees with thick trunks. This photograph combines the two. The presence of the smaller foreground trees provides color in front of the revealed trunks of this grove of tall and straight trees.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: north

Bluff, Tidal Flats, Tomales Bay

Edge of the Meadow

Evening, Wildfire Smoke, Tomales Bay

Aspen Grove in Shade

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