Black and white photograph of narrow urban canyon that is Maiden Lake, in the financial district of New York City.
This street scene is in lower Manhattan, not far from the site of the World Trade Center towers. The morning light seems especially interesting on this curving street as the sun manages to penetrate all the way to the street level and the illuminated fronts of the buildings lining the “concrete canyon” are visible due to the curve.
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.
Morning fog clears from the North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California.
Last week I made a quick trip north of San Francisco to photograph in the morning at Muir Woods National Monument in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. My habit is to be on the road early enough to arrive at Muir Woods before the crowds arrive, and this almost always means that I cross the Golden Gate quite early in the morning, sometimes at dawn and sometimes a bit later. As I go across the bridge I keep my eyes open for special or unusual conditions – I no longer stop every time, but I do if the scene looks more interesting than usual.
This morning was unusual. It was extremely hot and dry inland, yet the offshore fog bank was making a valiant (and ultimately unsuccessful) effort to push its way through the Golden Gate past the bridge. The fog was not deep and it could only sustain itself where there was plenty of water or as it passed directly over the hills on either side of the entrance to the Bay. This meant that light was coming through the fog and it was intermittently coming and going along the edge of its incursion into the warmer air. So, I stopped.
This photograph looks back across a section of the bay that is fog covered and brightly back lit by the morning light, with the higher fog trying to push across the shoulder of the hills of the Marin headlands with the distant view of the San Francisco skyline beyond.
On a technical note, I used a 50mm prime lens for this photograph – the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4. I switched to the prime from my more typical zoom for several reasons. First, this composition seemed to work with the 50mm focal length. Second, this 50mm prime is a really excellent lens for landscape and similar work, providing outstanding resolution at the apertures typically used. Finally, I had the luxury of not having to work quickly – so I could rely on a prime with the “right” focal length rather than working with the zoom.
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.
A tree grows at the rocky edge of a cliff above Middle Young Lake and the forest receding into the late-afternoon western light, Yosemite National Park, California.
Continuing the process of milking my mid-September shoot at Young Lakes for as many photographs as possible, here’s one more. As I wandered around the “side” of the upper lake I saw a meadowy area below the outlet stream that looked interesting, so I followed it to the beginning of a steep drop off towards the middle lake. Here the combination of low-angle back light glancing off or the edges of the rocky outcropping and the distant forest-covered hills fading into the sunny haze caught my attention. It was also interesting to think about the fact that I had just walked past the lake seen at the lower left perhaps no more than 30-45 minutes earlier.
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.
Early evening light on boulders, trees, and cliffs along the edge of Upper Young Lake, Yosemite National Park, California.
Seeing that this feels like about the 100th photograph in this series from Upper Young Lake, I’m half tempted to title it “Yet Another Upper Young Lake Photograph.” I won’t, but I will keep the commentary short on this one. Shot on the same mid-September evening along the shore near the lower end of the lake, I used a longer focal length for this one and composed it to include a slightly darker and steeper section of the cliffs that rise from one side of the lake.
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.
