Tag Archives: north

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Village People

July 5, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pedestrians waiting for the light to change, San Francisco

A photograph like this one may or may not make sense to you. If it does, I probably don’t need to write much about it. If it doesn’t, I’m not sure that I can write enough to explain. But I’ll try. A little bit.

Walking around any large city, and especially in San Francisco, I’m on the lookout for various things: a scene, light, collections of people, individual people, color, architecture, shapes, you name it. I think the light first caused me to pause at this corner. Here much of the light is reflected from the windows of surrounding building, and it comes from almost all directions. Then, for just a moment, this collection of people, most of whom are unconnected with the others in the scene, assembled themselves into this pose, one that almost seems staged. The arrangement of the group intrigues me, but even more the contributions of the individuals is interesting.

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: Sierra Nevada

Wildflowers, Rocks, and Grass

July 4, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Flowers and new grass at the beginning of the “green season” in the Sierra Nevada foothills

Today I went for a hike — not in the Sierra Nevada foothills but in a place where some of the same seasonal cycles are found. The hike took me up to a ridge, where I followed a trail along its crest. It was hot and dry, and the hills were covered by brittle, brown grasses. That’s how summer works in much of California. People who come here from the east or the north are often taken aback by what looks like a dead and dry landscape, and they may not be able to see the beauty in it.

But it isn’t that way all year. In fact, during winter, when many of those green-in-summer places are freezing or buried under snow, much of California erupts into what I call the “impossibly green season.” Believe it or not, this photograph was made in February in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Snow was still falling in the higher mountains, and it would continue to do so for several more months. But here in the low hills along the western edge of the range, winter rains had resurrected the grasslands and caused the wildflowers to bloom

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

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

Beach, Fog, and Surf

June 30, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pacific ocean surf at a foggy beach near Point Sur

My part of California — generally the San Francisco Bay Area — is climatically complex, especially during the warm season. We sit between the hot interior climate of the Central Valley and points further east, and the coastal climate under the influence of the Pacific Ocean. The Bay Area is famous for its microclimate, and conditions can diverge wildly among areas that are not that far apart. A day or two ago the weather report told of temperatures well above 100 degrees along the eastern edge of the region where it spills out into the Central Valley and temperatures that never reached 60 degrees along the coast at Point Reyes — a difference of close to 50 degrees between areas separated by a few tens of miles.

The past week has been one of the periodic hot spells, so when I heard about the mid-fifty degree temperatures and fog along the coast I had to go! Today I drove down past Monterey and kept going down the Big Sur coast past Lucia. It was foggy well inland in the morning and it never did clear completely along the coast, where not only was it cold but the winds were howling and kicking up whitecaps on the ocean. I made this photograph near Point Sur, roughly along the line where the inland sun and the coastal fog were doing battle… and the fog was still winning at this point.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Winter Dawn, Sacramento Valley

June 29, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Winter clouds at dawn above the Sacramento Valley

Today it is close to the end of June, the start of the hot season in California, and it has been nearly 100 degrees where I live and hotter than that where I made this photograph. It is, at it is every year, hard to believe that it was only months ago that I was out in this spot on a freezing January morning, with snow-covered peaks to my east and west, watching the first dawn light on these spectacular clouds and listening to the sounds of early morning flights of migratory birds across the wetlands.

For this I will get up at 3:00 am and drive three hours in the pre-dawn darkness. I had not visited this location before, and as I turned off of Interstate 5, the main artery up this valley, and headed east on a two-lane road I wasn’t sure what I would find. The sky was beginning to glow and it seemed that sunrise was coming soon — perhaps too soon for my arrival. I turned off onto a gravel road and headed into this refuge, passing the entrance and heading out onto the perimeter road just in time for this astonishing morning light show.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: north

Village People

Wildflowers, Rocks, and Grass

Beach, Fog, and Surf

Winter Dawn, Sacramento Valley

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