Tag Archives: north

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

Elephant Seals in Surf

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Elephant Seals in Surf - Two elephant seals spar in the surf at Point Reyes National Seashore, California.
Two elephant seals spar in the surf at Point Reyes National Seashore, California.

Elephant Seals in Surf. Point Reyes National Seashore, California. June 24, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two elephant seals spar in the surf at Point Reyes National Seashore, California.

After over a month of not exposing a single frame, I needed to go out and start shooting again this past week. (June is often a very busy time of year for me, and this June was especially challenging in a number of ways.) So, even though it is finals week at the college and I have a lot of papers to grade and loose ends to tie up, I managed to get away for a half day to photograph at Point Reyes. I went there with few specific ideas about what to shoot, instead just sort of hanging loose, enjoying whatever I could find, and making photographs as I found them. I started by taking an unplanned detour out towards Tomales Point – I was sort of killing time while waiting for the light to do the right stuff, and I thought it would be interesting to head out there and see the tule elk. After that I returned to the main road and headed out toward the Point Reyes lighthouse.

It actually was not my plan to go to the lighthouse, and didn’t even drive the last little bit of roadway to that site. Instead I took the turn towards the start of the Chimney Rock trail, with a general plan of being high up on the bluffs of this southernmost section of the Point when the good light arrived. I pulled in, at a sandwich for dinner, loaded up my camera gear, and headed out along the trail. I had a few things in mind. I know that shooting back along the steep, rocky cliffs of the Point late in the day can be dramatic, and I started by photographing there – fortunately my timing turned out to be almost exactly right, as I caught a last bit of light on the mist and haze along the shoreline before the sun moved too far north to continue to light the area. I then moved on out the end of the trail, where I just sat for a while as I waited for the early evening color to come to the light. I made a few photographs out here, stopped again along the bluffs to photograph along the point (but the best light had passed), made a few photographs back across Drakes Bay, and then started back towards a low point, protected from the wind, from which I thought I might try to photograph the Farallons right at sunset. Once I got there, the light on the islands seemed uninteresting, but I soon realized that the guttural sounds of elephant seals that I had been hearing were coming from the base of the cliff on which I was standing. I moved a bit closer to the edge – but not too close! – and was able to shoot straight down on a group of elephant seals as they alternately lay around on the beach and sparred in the shallow surf just beyond the sand.

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: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Redwoods and Big Leaf Maples, Gazos Creek

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Redwoods and Big Leaf Maples, Gazos Creek - Redwood and big leaf maple forest along Gazos Creek, California
Redwood and big leaf maple forest along Gazos Creek, California

Redwoods and Big Leaf Maples, Gazos Creek. Northern California. July 12, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Redwood and big leaf maple forest along Gazos Creek, California.

I recall that on this day I had gone out to photograph along the Pacific coastline between Santa Cruz and San Francisco, California, mostly without any specific plan. First I had gone to one of my favorite Highway 1 bluffs to photograph the birds that pass within a few feet of it as they coast along the coastal updrafts. Then I moved north along the coast and discovered a group of kite surfers at one of the beaches, so I stopped and photographed them for a while.

Continuing north I came to a turn off to one of the many small roads that head up into the mountains that lie between the shoreline and the urban areas around San Francisco Bay. I took it and found myself driving along this narrow and twisty road that followed the bottom of a valley holding a small creek. The bottom of the steep and narrow canyon was deeply shaded by thick forest, including some stands of second-growth redwoods. This photograph was made in a nameless section of the valley where there was a spot to pull over and photograph the soft light filtering down through the moss-covered trees.

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: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Wooden Door, Concrete Wall

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Wooden Door, Concrete Wall - A wooden door in a concrete wall in an alley along The Embarcadero, San Francisco.
A wooden door in a concrete wall in an alley along The Embarcadero, San Francisco.

Wooden Door, Concrete Wall. San Francisco, California. April 20, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A wooden door in a concrete wall in an alley along The Embarcadero, San Francisco.

I’ll keep this description short since the photograph was taken in a location and circumstances that I have already described more fully. While walking along the Embarcadero on the waterfront of San Francisco I came across some alleys that had been locked up in the past and this time found them open. So I wandered down the alleys toward the water and discovered some old industrial buildings with worn doorways and walls and decided to make some photographs.

Much of this area is undergoing renovation or else being reclaimed by firms that find the slightly old-fashioned and dilapidated buildings to be picturesque and perhaps a bit trendy. Side by side with modern companies and offices there are remnants of a much different and rougher past.

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.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Aurora Bridge, Seattle

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Tower and steel structures beneath the Aurora Bridge, Seattle, Washington
Aurora Bridge, Seattle – Tower and steel structures beneath the Aurora Bridge, Seattle, Washington

Aurora Bridge, Seattle. Seattle, Washington. May 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tower and steel structures beneath the Aurora Bridge, Seattle, Washington.

In early May I was briefly in Seattle on personal business, and I found myself with a free couple of hours that coincided with a Seattle Photo Walk in the Fremont district – so I left my other business behind, grabbed camera and a couple primes, and headed to the meet-up at the statue of Lenin. Really – it is a long story. ;-)

For those who don’t know, there is a waterfront along the edge of Fremont – the waterway connecting Lake Washington to the Puget Sound by way of the Ballard Locks. North of the water is a more hilly area, and Aurora Avenue crosses from there heading south over the water by way of the Aurora Bridge, which stands high above the water and above Fremont. Almost as soon as I started my “photo walk” in Fremont, I knew that I wanted to wander on over towards the bridge to see what I could find. It turns out that there is a recreational trail that passes alongside and under the bridge, so I walked down that way and made a series of handheld photographs from underneath this impressive structure.

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.