Tag Archives: north

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

Lake Shore, Autumn Morning

December 19, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light strikes grass on the shoreline of a Sierra lake reflecting autumn aspen color

Some photographs have to age for a while before I go back and figure out how to “see” them. This is one of those. I made the photograph a few months ago on a lovely autumn morning high in the Eastern Sierra, at a corner of a well-known location from which people frequently photograph a rather different view. I had begun the morning near this lake, looking for ways to see the landscape in this location in ways that weren’t quite as familiar to me, partly with photographic intent and partly out of not wanting to be part of the assembled crowd!

A bit later, once the expected light show had ended and those who came only for that had departed, I wandered down along the shore of the lake. Where there had been dozens a bit earlier, there were now only two, myself and one other photographer. I’ve been intrigued by these grassy areas along the edge of this lake, but I had not thought to photograph the scene from quite this direction before — and my timing was either perfect or, more likely, lucky in that the first beams of morning light to find their way through surrounding trees were just beginning to strike the patch of grass.

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

Clearing Storm, Pacific Coast

November 28, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An autumn storm clears along the Northern California cost above Fort Bragg

On this November day, the light along the Pacific coast north of Fort Bragg, California was mostly spectacular and in a constant state of change. In rained, occasionally hard and more than once taking us by surprise, there was fog, the sun appeared, clouds were dark one moment and luminously bright the next.

We paused at this overlook, where the meeting of land and water is less steep. The nearly level coastal bluffs run along the water at the base of low coastal mountains, and the underwater slope is also apparently not very steep, judging from the distance from the shoreline that the waves begin to rise and break. The atmosphere was semi-opaque, filled with a combination of fog and light rain, and the glow of light on clouds was diffused and soft. To the west, sun broke through the clouds and lit the water brilliantly in patterns that curved toward the horizon. The waves broke against the seaward side of the huge sea stack — more of an island, really — that stood in front of us just off from the shoreline.

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

Leaf and Sand

November 23, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An autumn leaf in the sand of a California north coast beach

In many ways the spectacular and rugged Pacific ocean coastline of Northern California is a landscape of huge scale, from the ocean itself to the long views of rocky cliffs, shoreline bluffs, coastal mountain ranges, sea stacks, clouds and fog. I love this country and many of my photographs of this landscape focus on these very things.

But sometimes I do look down at my feet as well. On this afternoon we had stopped at a beach where the road dropped down to nearly the water level and the wintry ocean was wild with the energy of a passing storm, producing surf and swells so large that it seemed that we looked up at them. I wandered out toward the waterline and began to photograph the surf and some sea stacks that stood in the path of the waves. As I turned to walk down the beach I happened to look down and see this autumn leaf, stuck in the sand near the high water mark, with the faintly visible paths of water that had detoured around the leaf on its way back into the ocean.

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Still Water, Clouds

November 14, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A few scattered clouds are reflected in the surface of Mono Lake on a windless day

As I have returned to Mono Lake over the years, my orientation to the place has changed. (I guess that is a sort of general theme with me, now that I think of it — repeated visits to a familiar place over long periods of time are rewarded with a continually evolving knowledge of the place.) First it is just a very big lake. They one usually discovers tufa towers, followed perhaps by birds. My concept of the place has now come to center on quiet immensity, with open sky above, perhaps interrupted by the sounds of birds.

Mono Lake is often a windy place, but at times, especially early in the day, the winds can die down or even stop, and the stillness becomes palpable. On this day I traveled out to a shoreline area I had not visited before, and one that is not particularly popular or well-known. I parked and walked down a slope towards the water, where I found its surface almost still and reflecting the shapes of a few clouds to the north.

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: north

Lake Shore, Autumn Morning

Clearing Storm, Pacific Coast

Leaf and Sand

Still Water, Clouds

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