Tag Archives: park

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

Pine Cones and Ice, Reflected Sky

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Pine Cones and Ice, Reflected Sky - Pine cones on morning ice, blue with reflected light from the sky, Yosemite National Park.
Pine cones on morning ice, blue with reflected light from the sky, Yosemite National Park.

Pine Cones and Ice, Reflected Sky. Yosemite National Park, California. June 19, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Pine cones on morning ice, blue with reflected light from the sky, Yosemite National Park.

I’m on a bit of a minor Yosemite run right now, as I’ve found a bit of extra time to get back to my review of the past ten year’s of image files. I had almost completed the task earlier this year, but the work stalled out a few months back somewhere in the spring of 2011. I’m now up to June of that year and hoping to continue the slog!

I made this photograph right about the time that Tioga Pass first opened for the season – not the first day, but very close to it. I had gotten up very early that morning to photograph in the pre-dawn cold near Tioga Pass, and from there began to work my way back to the west towards Tuolumne Meadows. I stopped at a small roadside lake to photograph a larger scene and as I was setting up for that shot I looked down and noticed the newly formed ice with its fractured texture reflecting the morning’s blue sky and supporting a variety of things that had blown down including a couple of pine cones. If you look carefully you can just make out rocks and grasses beneath the ice.

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

Spring Torrent, Boulders, and Trees

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Spring torrent, mist, and trees, Yosemite.
“Spring Torrent, Boulders, and Trees” — Spring snowmelt swells a rushing creek as it rushes past trees and over boulders, Yosemite National Park.

This is a Yosemite National Park cascade that I frequently photograph – at various times of the year including winter, the spring runoff season, and the much quieter and more sedate autumn time. This creek drops precipitously down a steep mountainside (as a number of Yosemite Valley creeks tend to do!) and passes in several place through narrow, twisting, and granite boulder-filled channels.

I made this photograph at almost right around the peak of the spring runoff during an above-average precipitation year, so the water was roaring though this section. The mist that is visible in the photograph was being blown strongly down the canyon and I had to stand in its flow to make this photograph. I recall that I more or less figured out the composition (two actually – one vertical and this one horizontal) before I moved into position, and then I quickly stepped into the mist and made a series of exposures before I and my equipment became too wet, shooting straight into the blowing mist. Now, when I look at this photograph, the memory of the cool, wet air and the tremendous sound of the cascading water comes back to me.

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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Three Tule Elk, Grassland

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Three Tule Elk, Grassland - Three tule elk grazing along the headlands area at Point Reyes National Seashore.
Three tule elk grazing along the headlands area at Point Reyes National Seashore.

Three Tule Elk, Grassland. Point Reyes National Seashore, California. May, 30, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Three tule elk grazing along the headlands area at Point Reyes National Seashore.

Although I was certainly aware that there are tule elk herds at Point Reyes National Seashore, I was not thinking about them when we encountered this group. We had driven out to the Point Reyes lighthouse and other areas at the extreme end of the peninsula, and had then stopped at Drakes Beach on the return trip. Finishing up at the beach, we got back in the car and headed up the hill towards the main road. As we reached an area near the top of the hill I thought I saw something moving off to the side, but I initially failed to recognize what I was seeing because the possibility of such animals in this place was not on my mind. I thought I was perhaps seeing a fence or something similar, but I couldn’t make sense out of why the fence would be moving!

A moment later we were a bit closer and it was obvious that a small herd of the tule elk were grazing very close to the fence along the road. I got out of the car and quietly attached a long lens to my camera and began to photograph these animals. The lighting and other circumstances were nearly perfect. It was very late in the day and the golden hour light had just started, and the backdrop was either the rolling hills you see here or, if I moved a bit to one side, some higher hills further to the west. This group of three large animals was moving, along with other animals not included in this shot, away from the road and further out into the meadows. As the three of them lined up in parallel, for a moment one swung its head around and looked directly towards me.

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: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

De Young Museum, Exterior Detail

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De Young Museum, Exterior Detail - Exterior walls of San Francisco's De Young Museum.
Exterior walls of San Francisco's De Young Museum.

De Young Museum, Exterior Detail. San Francisco, California. March 9, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Exterior walls of San Francisco’s De Young Museum.

In early March I was at San Francisco’s De Young Museum for an event associated with the “San Francisco 1964” exhibit of the photography of Arthur Tress, at which Tress spoke to a small group of San Francisco photographers about his work. (Thank you to Adobe for inviting me and the other photographers. The exhibit continues, and San Francisco Bay Area photography fans and others visiting the area should consider a visit to the show.) Unless I’m heading up there for certain musical performance, I almost always take a camera to The City, and I certainly brought one this time. I mainly photographed Tress during his talk, but once it was over and I left the museum I had a bit of time to wander around and shoot the nearby area.

I started in the Music Concourse, a lowered area in front of the museum that features some ominous-looking dormant trees at this time of year. After finishing there I walked back around the museum to head back to my car, and I passed by this “side” wall of the facility near the tower section of the building. The exterior walls are very interesting. They are apparently constructed of some sort of copper panels that have been “dimpled” in a range of ways that evolve across its surface, and it looks like some of the upper level “walls” are more like screens than solid material. As I understand it, the idea was that this metallic surface would “age” and acquire a patina that might make it blend in more with the natural surroundings of the park. (Though it is hard to imagine that tower blending in!) In the soft light on this shaded side of the building the range of colors and tones in the material was striking, ranging from the blacks of dark shadow areas, to the expected reddish copper tones, to all sorts of blueish shades.

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.