Tag Archives: pacific

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Rocky Islands, Fog, and Surf

May 3, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Brightly sunlit fog blankets rocky islands and high surf, Point Lobos.

The conditions were wildly changeable on this early afternoon at Point Lobos. I had originally been shooting at a more protected location in the park where it was mostly sunny, though with the sun partially obscured by high, thin clouds. After finishing with my shooting in that location I decided to head out toward the more exposed coastline just south of the “Point” itself before leaving, and when I got there I found that the fog back was perhaps only a few hundred yards offshore and was already beginning to obscure some of the rocks.

I hurried a bit to the south to a point where the view might be clear toward Bird Island and the Carmel Highlands, thinking that I might get some long distance shots before the fog closed it or, better yet, as it came in. Sure enough, I arrived at a good spot to work from while the rocks were still clearly visible against the backdrop of the fog, which was brightly lit from behind by the sun. I set up my tripod, mounted a very long lens, and attached the camera, and looked back at the view to find… that the rocks had virtually disappeared as the fog moved in more quickly that I expected. Still, by waiting for momentary clearing in the mist, I was able to make a few very foggy photographs of these large off-shore rocks, almost obscured by the incoming fog.

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

Coal Chute Point and The Pit

April 2, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Coal Chute Point, the Pit, and the rugged shoreline of Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

(Shortly after posting this, another photographer wrote to suggest that I might consider renaming the image to “Point and Chute.” ;-)

For all the years – decades, actually, and more than a few – that I’ve been visiting Point Lobos, there are still places that I have not gotten around to visiting within the boundaries of the park. Among them are some headlands not far from Whalers Cove that I’ve looked at for a long time… and then always headed off to some other part of the reserve without visiting them. Earlier this week I visited Point Lobos with no particular goal in mind aside from making some photographs, and I somehow finally ended up in this picturesque area that offers some quite different views from those found in the areas that more directly face out into the Pacific. (While it is, indeed, picturesque… the place names are not. Coal Chute Point? The Pit?)

The light in this photograph is somewhat subdued, at least in comparison to some of the photographs you might see of such a place, typically shot in the evening when the sky is at its most colorful. (Yes, I’ve certainly made my share of those photographs at Point Lobos, too!) But this light had a different sort of appeal, and it continuously changed during my half day there. When I arrived some fog was just clearing near the coast. It was a strange pattern – fog way inlands that looked more like the typical winter valley tule fog than the summer coastal fog. In fact, as is frequently the case in winter, it was clear at the coast. But somewhat surprisingly there was a regular old fog bank lurking a ways off the shoreline – and later in the day it moved in on the coast. Along with this there were high, thin clouds from a weather front that was passing well to the north. These conditions can still provide directional light but light which is softer and can fill in the shadows a bit – making it possible to shoot in places and at times of the day when the light might otherwise be too harsh. For this photograph I decided to “go wide,” and shoot with a 24mm focal length of a full frame DSLR to accentuate the distance between the foreground beach and the distant horizon and to include the full width of the curving wave as it broke on the beach.

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

Fog, Surf, and Rocks

April 1, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Midday sun glows through coastal fog bank above offshore rocks and surf, Point Lobos State Reserve.

I made a new photograph in the “barely there” series today at Point Lobos. It was a surprisingly good photography day at Point Lobos. I say this because when I started out this morning things did not look very promising at all. At my home, it was cloudy and gray – but since at least one weather forecast mentioned sun down in the Monterey Peninsula area, I decided to give it a try. As I drove south it got worse – I ended up in very thick fog during the first 30 minutes or so of my drive. However, recalling that when there is inland fog this time of year there is often clearing at the coast, I decided to keep going. A few miles from Monterey the skies began to clear, leaving some pockets of fog here and there with high thin clouds above. Now things were looking up! High, thin clouds can provide excellent conditions for many kinds of landscape shooting, since these conditions soften that shadows and take the harsh edge off of the light.

Arriving at Point Lobos I could see there was fog a good distance off shore, but beautiful light was shining through the forest along the entrance road. I headed down to Whalers Cove and went for a hike around the far side of the cove, and ended up spending the better part of three hours poking around in this area. By the time I got back to my car it was lunch time, and I decided to at least head out to the west-facing shoreline to look around before leaving. When I got there, the offshore fog bank had moved in and was starting to flow across the shoreline. A bit further south I could see the backlit fog lit brilliantly by the sun and almost obscuring the rocks and islands in the Bird Island area. In fact, by the time I got my camera on the tripod, these islands had completely disappeared. I waited a bit, and their shapes began to again barely emerge from the fog.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Tree Farm and Hills

March 10, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

This is perhaps a bit of a subtle photograph. While shooting in the Skagit Valley of Washington, my brother Richard and I took a break from photographing trumpeter swans and snow geese and went looking for bald eagles, which hang out nearby in large numbers. We eventually found several of them in various trees in the area, including in the upper branches of these large groves of trees that I think may be poplars that are part of a tree farm. (Our first attempt with the eagles was a classic. We saw a beautiful bird in a tree at the edge of the grove right alongside the road. We stopped. We carefully fitted the right long lenses. We got out. We aimed… and the eagle flew away.)

While standing around looking for the birds I was fascinated by the regular patters of these very slender and closely spaced trees in the tree farms that were along the road. The light was very muted due to overcast, and the trees themselves don’t provide a whole lot of light/dark contrast. I found a section of the grove that I liked and then worked my position so that I could get the diagonal of the more distant and out of focus ridge to cut across the background and angle down to the right.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: pacific

Rocky Islands, Fog, and Surf

Coal Chute Point and The Pit

Fog, Surf, and Rocks

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