Tag Archives: pacific

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

Morning Fog, Rocks, and Surf

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Morning Fog, Rocks, and Surf
The surf rolls in on a quiet, foggy morning along the coast north of Santa Cruz, California near Waddell Creek.

Morning Fog, Rocks, and Surf. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The surf rolls in on a quiet, foggy morning along the coast north of Santa Cruz, California near Waddell Creek.

As we begin to come to terms with the near-end of the Covid-19 crisis in my part of the world — the San Francisco Bay Area — it begins to seem more possible to simply get up, make decision about a destination, and head out for the day. (I do understand that I’m particularly fortunate to live in a place where vaccination rates are very high.) Probably the most likely subject on my “Hey, I’ll go photograph today!” list is the Pacific Ocean coastline, which I can reach as quickly as a bit more than a half hour.

Objectively speaking, there was nothing all that special or unusual about this May morning. The fog, typical at this time of year, blanketed the coast and slid inland to the tops of coastal hills. As I drove a section of the Pacific Coast Highway north of Santa Cruz the fog began to break up in spots, though few people were there to see it on this weekday morning. After I turned around and started back I passed by this spot and noticed the pile of rocks extending across the beach in front of the shallow bay filled with waves leading to distant sea stacks and bluffs.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Pacific Horizon, Autumn

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Pacific Horizon, Autumn
Brilliant autumn sun reflects from the surface of the Pacific Ocean, Big Sur.

Pacific Horizon, Autumn. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Brilliant autumn sun reflects from the surface of the Pacific Ocean, Big Sur.

For almost my entire life (since my family moved to California from the Upper Midwest when I was four years old) I have lived within hailing distance of the Pacific Ocean and the western shoreline of the North American continent. Although I don’t live literally on the coast — a range of coastal mountains separates me from it — the Pacific is ever-present. That’s where our big winter storms come from. Fog from the coast cools us when the temperatures are in the 100’s further inland. Drives take me past the San Francisco Bay and the rivers emptying into it. And when I need a quick escape I can be over those coastal hills and at the ocean in less than one hour.

This photograph comes from a late-autumn pandemic-era day trip down the coast into what I think of as the “Big Sur coast” below Monterey and Carmel. These visits, as short as they were, reminded me that the natural world was still there and still doing more or less what it had always done. We think of this coast as running north/south, but it actually cuts inward to the east as you travel down it. Because of this, by noon I can photograph straight into the blinding light of the sun reflected on the surface of the sea.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

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

Mendocino Bay, Morning

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Mendocino Bay, Morning
Waves wash onto the shoreline of Mendocino Bay on a foggy morning.

Mendocino Bay, Morning. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Waves wash onto the shoreline of Mendocino Bay on a foggy morning.

Recently I returned to the photographs from this visit to the North Coast of California, on which we spent a few days in Mendocino. This little town presents an interesting dichotomy between the old-school funky, hippiness of that part of the state and the semi-yuppified element that has grown in more recent years. In a sense, you “see it all” in this place.

On this visit we stayed in town, not more than a couple of minutes walk from the bluffs overlooking the bay just south of the peninsula on which the town sits. On this morning we wandered over there in the morning before the morning fog and haze had completely clearer, and I made a series of photographs looking inland along these bluffs to the outlet of the river that drains into the bay.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

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Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Follow the Leader(s)

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Follow the Leader(s)
A flock of sandhill cranes taking flight over Pacific Flyway wetlands on a winter morning.

Follow the Leader(s). © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A flock of sandhill cranes taking flight over Pacific Flyway wetlands on a winter morning.

Yeah, I know — MORE cranes! I can’t help it. They have become my favorite Pacific Flyway migratory birds, plus I had some excellent opportunities to photography them this past winter. (This topic came up in a recent online discussion in which the question of how I managed to find/corral a large number of them came up. I’m thinking of adopting a new moniker: “Crane Wrangler.”)

On this late-winter morning there was just a hint of fog in the air as the sun came up — just enough to mute the first light and some of the more distant colors. A large contingent of these birds, probably well over 1000 of them, was standing in shallow wetland ponds. As the light increased, they gradually began to depart in small groups, and I tracked them as they flew across the scene.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

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