Tag Archives: plant

Photographs: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Nimitz Avenue, Tower and Buildings

February 18, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Tower, buildings, and power plant smokestack along Nimitz Avenue, Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California.

One more, and perhaps the last, in the current series of Mare Island night photographs made with The Nocturnes during the first weekend of February. This scene is one that is well-known to Mare Island night photographers – a row of industrial buildings in the “historic core” of the old shipbuilding facility where huge overhead steel structures run between the machine shops and the old docks. In this photograph I decided to more or less shoot through the base of one of these giant towers. The scene is illuminated by bright and colorful artificial light and the photograph required an exposure of about a minute and a half. (I cheated and shot the 5D2 at ISO 200.) Though they may be hard to see in the small jpg, some star trails are visible in the sky near the smokestack of the old power plant.

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

Kelp Detail #1, Weston Beach

January 31, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Detail of kelp and other debris (“wrack”) washed up by winter storms at Weston Beach, Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

This is another of the close up shots of kelp washed up on the shore at Weston Beach following a winter storm. There are several things that caught my eye on this pile of washed up sea trash… ;-) First, the shapes and colors of the kelp “floats” are intriguing, and I think more photogenic during this wetter time of year. I also liked the curving steps of the plants that wind through the frame from the left and up toward the right. Mixed in with this are some larger leaves with deeply ridged texture. Underlying all of this is the faintly colored sandstone and a few odd colorful stones.

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

Kelp Detail #2, Weston Beach

January 29, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Detail of kelp and other debris (“wrack”) washed up by winter storms at Weston Beach, Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

Perhaps putting more trust in the words of the weatherman than was appropriate, I slept in on this morning, having heard the night before that it was going to rain. But when I got up the sun was shining, and I realized that I should have been out shooting! After taking care of a few morning chores, I managed to get away and drive down to the coast. I didn’t have a specific plan besides “the coast,” but as I drove I kept an eye on the sky since the weather from was starting to come ashore and high clouds were beginning to diffuse the light.

As I got near Monterey I figured I might as well take a look at Point Lobos, even though it seemed like the clouds might be starting to build along the coast – I figured that if it turned out to be too cloudy there I could just come back by way of Moss Landing. At Point Lobos the seas were fairly high and very choppy and the high clouds still hadn’t thickened so much as to cut off the light – although at times it got a bit murky, in between there was soft light diffused by high, translucent clouds. I started shooting the more distant landscapes from low bluffs near Weston Beach, working in the wind and the spray from the high surf. After doing this for a while I decided that I’d head a bit south before the time for my short visit ran out. As I walked around the curve of the edge of Weston Beach (which still seems to me like it really should be called Weston Cove – there isn’t much of a “beach” there at all) I saw that a lot of seaweed and kelp debris had been washed up by earlier high surf, and I decided to wander around there for a bit looking for interesting compositions that included the sandstone rocks and the kelp.

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.

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

Winter Fog and Oak Covered Hills

January 21, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Winter morning fog settles over the oak covered Calero Hills landscape of central California.

On this early-January winter morning I headed to my “photographic backyard” in the Calero Hills area, knowing that I’d get to shoot my favorite hills, oak trees, and grasslands in fog, clearing fog, and perhaps even sunlight. Things didn’t pan out exactly as I expected, but it was a good morning of photography anyway.

After starting out by photographing a tree in the “lowlands” of the park, I could tell that the tule fog was starting to clear a bit along the ridges – the brighter light from above was one hint, and the occasional faint sight of blue sky and clouds through the low fog was another. So I decided to finish up my work on that tree and follow a trail that ascends to one of the many minor ridges running through the park.

Arriving at a familiar point on the ridge along a valley that drops away to the south, the fog began to clear from my location. I soon discovered that it wasn’t going to be a day for sunlit photographs – a weak weather system was approaching and high clouds muted the sunlight. In addition the fog didn’t exactly clear – it was more a case of the fog sort of washing back and forth. One moment my position and nearby ridges would clear and I’d see the overcast sky above (as in this photograph), but a few minutes later another wave of fog would expand out of the valleys and I’d be socked in again. So I set up and waited and watched and ended up with several photographs that I like.

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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