Tag Archives: photo

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Textures

September Sky Number One

September 28, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Sky above the San Francisco Bay Area, September 21, 2012

There probably isn’t a lot to say about a photograph of a small section of the September sky above northern California. I made the photograph while waiting (for three hours!) for the Space Shuttle Endeavour flyover at the NASA/Ames Research Center Moffett Field. Fortunately, it was not a typical perfect blue sky California September day – instead there were some beautiful high clouds of various sorts that were probably connected to the passage of some tropical moisture. Standing around with a bit lens on the camera and nice clouds overhead – why not photograph a few of them? :-)

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Trees and Cliff, Morning

September 27, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Morning light spills over a high ridge to back light trees near Steelhead Lake.

This photograph was made from a point perhaps ten feet (or less!) from my bivy sack. We were camped at out-of-the-way Steelhead Lake, up above McGee Canyon and off the main trail to McGee Lakes and McGee Pass. While I had looked up McGee Canyon from the trailhead before – almost every year while photographing aspens, in fact – this was the first time that I had backpacked up this route and had a chance to actually explore the area. We ended up staying at this lake for two nights, providing time to do a bit of exploration and to see certain subjects that I might have missed with a shorter visit.

I had seen and photographed (though in a different way) this little clump of lakeside trees the morning before, but after thinking about them a bit more I felt that I’d like to shoot them again the next morning. The light at this lake is a bit tricky in that there is a very high ridge to the south and east that blocks the light until quite late in the morning. No morning golden hour shots at this lake! The ridge holds two of the four “railroad baron” peaks that surround Pioneer Basin – Crocker and Stanford. (The other two are Hopkins and Huntington.) A few years ago I had investigated Pioneer Basin on a separate trip and had stood on top of this very ridge and looked down towards this year’s camp. In any case, I had an idea to shoot the trees against backlight, and almost as soon as the sun appeared above this ridge I went to work. I had to shoot essentially straight into the sun in order to get the glowing atmosphere in the canyon beyond the first ridge, and even with a long focal length I was barely able to keep my hand out of the frame as I shaded to front of the lens.

Photographs: Events, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Northern California

I Swear He is Smiling

September 26, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Smiling pilot of the carrier aircraft - Space Shuttle Endeavour Flyover - NASA Ames Moffett Field, California. A smiling pilot is visible through the cockpit window of the space shuttle Endeavour during its flyover of the NASA Ames Moffett Field — A smiling pilot is visible through the cockpit window of the space shuttle Endeavour during its flyover of the NASA Ames Moffett Field

A smiling pilot is visible through the cockpit window of the space shuttle Endeavour during its flyover of the NASA Ames Moffett Field.

Just for fun… this is a 100% magnification crop of a section of one of my photographs of the flyover by space shuttle Endeavour, mounted on its 747 transport aircraft. I made the photograph on September 21, 2012 as it flew over the NASA Ames Moffett Field in the San Francisco Bay Area. While working on the original photograph I was looking closely at it when I realized that the face of the pilot (co-pilot?) is visible in the cockpit window… and I swear he is grinning! :-)

(Since I know some will ask… Canon 5D2 with Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS, handheld.)

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

Meadow’s Edge, Lembert Dome, and Mount Dana

September 26, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Trees grow at the edges of Tuolumne Meadows as Lembert Dome and Mount Dana rise beyond, Yosemite National Park.

This photograph includes a bunch of Tuolumne Meadows icons familiar to most anyone who has spent time there – and I’ve spent a lot of time in and around this area over the years! The first obvious icon is the meadow itself, here near the “lower” section before it turns away from the highway and the Tuolumne River heads off towards Glen Aulin and eventually to the abomination of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The two prominences rising beyond the meadow are both icon. The closer of the two is Lembert Dome, well known to almost all visitors, especially the many who have hiked to its summit to experience the panoramic view of the area. Beyond Lembert Dome is Mount Dana, the second-highest peak in Yosemite. It is located on the eastern boundary of the park right above the entrance at Tioga Pass. For me, there are other icons in this scene as well, though they may be more personal. The lodgepole pine trees silhouetted along the right edge of the frame are found all over the region. The backlit haze, formed as the morning sun just clears the Sierra crest, is a condition that I strongly identify with Tuolumne – and it is a frequent photographic subject.

This simple shot posed some real technical challenges. Perhaps most obviously, the scene includes an extremely large dynamic range between the very bright areas of sunlit haze along the right shoulder of Mount Dana and the dark silhouettes of the backlit trees. In some situations I might make two exposures and blend them in post, but that does not work so well when thing tree trunks and branches stand against the sky. This is a single exposure that just barely contained the brightest tones, and from which I was able to recover just enough detail in the shadows. The composition might seem a bit odd to some, with the dark mass of the silhouetted trees very close to the right edge of the frame. The idea was to create a sense that the trees, or at least an observer among the trees, is looking out from them into the light-filled open space of the meadow.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: photo

September Sky Number One

Trees and Cliff, Morning

I Swear He is Smiling

Meadow’s Edge, Lembert Dome, and Mount Dana

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