Tag Archives: peninsula

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

Big Sur Coastline at Bixby Creek, Winter

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Big Sur Coastline at Bixby Creek, Winter
Big Sur Coastline at Bixby Creek, Winter

Big Sur Coastline at Bixby Creek, Winter. Central California Coast. January 1, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A winter storm approaches the bluffs of the Big Sur coastline at Bixby Creek.

This is, as you may have noticed, the same scene as that in yesterday’s photograph – but this time in portrait mode and composed to focus on the receding edge of the land as it meets the winter sea off of the Big Sur coast. To recap, it was raining lightly and blowing hard enough to almost knock me over when I made this photograph. The wind was coming straight at my camera position out of the south. Since I figured my tripod would probably blow right over in one of the gusts, I decided to use a “natural tripod” and instead drape myself over a conveniently placed boulder and brace the camera on the top of the rock.

This is a wild section of the coastline that forces the coast highway to ascend well above the steep shoreline bluffs and cliffs. I am intrigued by the rock pile that has slid off the face of the tall cliff at the left and collected along the beach in front of and beyond the cave at the waterline. I was surprised to see a small number of footprints in the sand on this little beach!

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Winter Dusk, Carmel Highlands Near Yankee Point

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Winter Dusk, Carmel Highlands Near Yankee Point
Winter Dusk, Carmel Highlands Near Yankee Point

Winter Dusk, Carmel Highlands Near Yankee Point. Carmel Highlands, California. January 2, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Winter dusk light and clouds over the Pacific Ocean at Carmel Highlands near Yankee Point, Pacific Coast Highway, California.

This is the companion image to the black and white photograph I posted yesterday, Before I made the exposures that I used to create that black and white landscape-orientation image, I first made a quick series of bracketed exposures in portrait mode. As I photographed, I knew that the dynamic range was going to be too large for a singe exposure so I quickly made a series of four exposures, from which I selected two that have blended to produce this image.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Yankee Point and Cypress, Carmel Highlands, Dusk

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Yankee Point and Cypress, Carmel Highlands, Dusk
Yankee Point and Cypress, Carmel Highlands, Dusk

Yankee Point and Cypress, Carmel Highlands, Dusk. Big Sur, California. January 2, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A Carmel Highlands cypress trees stands at the edge of a cliff above the Pacific Ocean and Yankee Point at dusk.

Oddly, this is a photograph that sort of “didn’t make the cut” the first time I went through the batch shortly after making the photographs in early 2010. I had spent the afternoon photographing further south in the Big Sur area and several other photographs from the set turned out more as I expected – and this one seemed like a sort of problem child photograph, so I didn’t take the time needed to work with it. Eventually I forgot about it as I went on to other projects.

The photo had been almost a bit of a grab shot. As I was heading north back up the coast, thinking I had finished my shooting and was now on the way home, I was stunned to catch a glimpse of some intense post-sunset light as I rounded the bend at the head of this cove in Carmel Highlands. I wasn’t certain that I could find a composition and work out a photograph in the brief interval the probably remained before the light faded, but I quickly put on the wide angle zoom, attached the camera to the tripod, and headed over to the edge of the bluff. Exposure was a terrible problem because the brilliant and very colorful sky was quite bright, while the close side of the foreground tree was nearly black. I made managed to shoot the scene a few times, shifting from landscape to portrait mode and making three bracketed exposures of each composition.

When I got home and looked at the raw files I think I decided that it was just going to be too much work for too little reward, and I instead went to work on more promising shots from earlier in the afternoon. This week I came upon the series of shots again and wondered what I could do with them. My first inclination was to go with the color, and I did come up with a portrait orientation image in color that I will probably post before long. Then, as I began to work on the landscape mode image, I started to see it as having potential as a monochrome image. I tried it. I liked it. And here it is!

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Shoreline Plants and Sandstone, Weston Cove

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Shoreline Plants and Sandstone, Weston Cove
Shoreline Plants and Sandstone, Weston Cove

Shoreline Plants and Sandstone, Weston Cove. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. October 23, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Plants grow in cracks in the sandstone along the shore of Weston Cove, Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

On this visit to Point Lobos, a place I photograph frequently, I wasn’t quite sure what conditions I would encounter. A Pacific weather front was approaching and I thought that I might encounter dismal, overcast conditions – but I was surprised to find it mostly sunny when I arrived. Even better, high, thin clouds were approaching the coast line and soon muted the direct sunlight, which made photographing these shoreline rock formations a more reasonable possibility during the late morning.

I’m pretty familiar with Point Lobos in general at this point, having visited the place from the time I was a child. I’m especially familiar with Weston Beach (or “cove,” as I like to think of it), with its circular shape, protective rock barrier, angled sandstone edges, and large pebbly “sand.” But as familiar as I am with this location, I almost alway find something new if I look around carefully enough, and these plants growing in the angular cracks in the sandstone were new to me.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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