Tag Archives: point

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Black Point

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Black Point
Mono Lake and Black Point

Black Point. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Mono Lake and Black Point.

Mono Lake and the basin it occupies make up a huge and diverse area with all sorts of attractions. The lake itself is usually regarded as the most striking feature — it is a massive, landlocked body of water filled by runoff from the eastern Sierra, whose peaks form the backdrop to the west. It sits on the western edge of the basin and range country that stretches east for many hundred of miles. And there are subjects on a more intimate scale, too, ranging from tufa towers to the abundant birdlife. It is also a place of volcanism, with craters in and extending south from the lake. And for me one of the most impressive features is the expanse of the place, with views extending across vast distances.

This feature, also volcanic, sits along the northern shoreline of the lake. While is easy to view from afar, it isn’t quite so simple to get to it, and consequently it is not a crowded place at all. In the lower portion of the photograph the lake’s waters meet its gentle shoreline, where water levels have dropped, in more recent times largely due to water withdrawn from tributary streams and sent to the LA area.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Pacific Coast Highway, Spring

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Pacific Coast Highway, Spring
Spring grass and wildflowers on the California Coast along the Pacific Coast Highway below Carmel

Pacific Coast Highway, Spring. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Spring grass and wildflowers on the California Coast along the Pacific Coast Highway below Carmel.

Just another spring day along the Big Sur coast. Really. I had the morning free so I headed down the coast, getting as far as the upper Big Sur coast, where spring was coming on strong. The hillsides were green (they will be brown soon enough!) and there were wildflowers everywhere.

This cove is a familiar one, located in the upper section of this part of the coastline, below Carmel and above the settlement of Big Sur. It is often a lovely spot, with the cove on one side and a point extending into the ocean on the other, and with rugged rocks and sea stacks everywhere. On this morning I looked at this scene across the headland, covered with spring greenery and yellow flowers.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Badlands, Morning

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Morning, Zabriskie Point
Layers of overlapping badlands formations in morning light, Death Valley National Park

Badlands, Morning. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Layers of overlapping badlands formations in morning light, Death Valley National Park.

This location provides a spectacular bit of Death Valley scenery, but it isn’t photographed as often as some nearby areas that are regarded as being more iconic. It also tends to be a bit more visually attractive, at least in my view, at a time of the day that is later than the usual “golden hour” morning time when most photographers tend to be in the area. Over the years I have had a sort of informal project to photograph this spot during these times.

This is also an older photograph — not from this year’s two visits to Death Valley but rather from a trip about eight years ago. Every so often I “discover” a photograph that I had overlooked when I originally made it. Missing them has puzzled me a bit, but I think it is some combination of moving on to the “next thing” a bit too quickly, not being ready to understand how to “see” the image as a final photograph right away, and being distracted by other contemporaneous work. Back then I did work up another view of this scene — it included more of the contrasting colors near the top of the frame, and by comparison this one may have seemed too subtle… which, of course, is now part of what I like about it!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Headlands, Surf, Natural Bridge

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Headlands. Surf, Natural Bridge
Storm surf raises spray among rocky headlands along the Big Sur coast

Headlands, Surf, Natural Bridge. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Storm surf raises spray among rocky headlands along the Big Sur coast

This is a scene that is very familiar to me at this point, though it is never exactly the same twice. Even when I try to resist the urge to rephotograph the familiar scene, I almost always end up stopping at least briefly. One reason is that I recall fondly the serendipitous story of the first time I photographed there. I had gone somewhere else initially, but it was too early for that location so I decided to go somewhere else before returning. I made a more or less random decision to head south — I think that a right turn was easier than a left — and headed down the coast to discover, to my surprise, that the surf was raising a cloud of spray along the shoreline. I happened to stop at this spot and I happened to have a new lens, without which the particular photograph would not have been possible.

Above, a mentioned that this location is never the same twice. I’ve been there in every season, during storms and fog and clearly, sunlit days. On the occasion when I made the photograph seen here it was rather nice weather, but the sea was angry, with swells of up to forty feet rolling onto the rocks and headlands, raising fog of ocean spray that was backlit by the low angle, late-autumn sun. I timed this exposure to be just after a big set of waves, and while the surf had calmed a bit the spray still filled the air.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.