Tag Archives: point

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

Backcountry Road, Desert Mountains

April 12, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Titus Canyon road twists through rugged desert landscape of Titanothere Canyon before climbing to its high point at Red Pass

I have driven through this desert back-country quite a few times during my visits to Death Valley National Park. This time was a bit different in two specific ways. First, in the past I have usually combined this route with an early morning shoot at a nearby location, shooting at this other location first, taking a breakfast break, and only then heading out on this drive. Consequently, I’ve always made the drive quite a bit later in the day when the light is much different – usually more hazy and with the sun higher in the sky. This time I started my day on this route, heading out just before dawn. Secondly, I made this a more leisurely passage. Sometimes in the past I have allowed myself to pass by too many portions of this region a bit too quickly, telling myself I had to move on in order to get to other things in time. This time I stopped a lot, and I often lingered at these stops for quite some time, poking around and looking for things to photograph that I might previously missed.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I have sometimes found certain aspects of the desert terrain to be quite difficult to “see” as photographs. I think that the limited color palette has been one issue (often spanning the range from gray to tan!) as has the tendency for things to have a rather uniform appearance – often it is hard to find one central and prominent feature to focus on. In addition, for a photographer who has tended to work in places with water and greenery, the desert possess some different challenges. More than on some previous visits, this time I think I realized more that it is absolutely critical to slow down and adapt to the different pace and rhythms of this world. This time, rather than looking and deciding to move on, I stopped and looked some more. And as I did I began to see that there are more of the patterns and juxtapositions and forms that intrigue me than I had realized.

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

Surf, Weston Beach

March 30, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Long exposure photograph of surf and boulders, Weston Beach, Point Lobos State Reserve

This part of a small series of photographs I made at Weston Beach, Point Lobos on a mid-January day. The location is very familiar to me, to the point that I recognize many specific rocks and formations here. I have photographed quite a few times, but I continue to find new things to see here. Part of that is from visiting in different seasons and conditions of weather and light, part from looking more closely, and part from thinking of different ways to photograph the familiar subject. More than once I’ve had a feeling that I was “done” with the location, only to go back and find a new way of seeing it to investigate.

I was playing with several ideas when I made this series of photographs. Obviously, I was working with long exposures that allowed the motion of the waves to blur in various ways, smoothing out the surface of the otherwise-rough water and turning shoreline waves into transparent mist. I was also working with a different sort of light than that which I would usually seek out here. More often I look for soft light, produced by some overcast, an early/late hour, or even fog. But it was very clear on this mid-morning visit and the light falling on the rocks was somewhat stark and harsh, especially when I shot almost into the sunlight. It seemed to me that the edginess of the brightly lit rock might be a counterpoint to the softness of the long-exposure blurring of the water. Obviously, I also went with black and white here. Also, a bit unusual for me, I worked with an ultra-wide angle focal length, getting quite close to the foreground but letting the distant subjects be small and accentuating that by placing the horizon very close to the top of the frame.

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

Monterey Cypress Trunks

March 27, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The trunks of Monterey Cypress trees along the north shore of Point Lobos State Reserve, California

In mid-January I made my first trip back to Point Lobos in quite a few months. This is a place that I know well, having visited since my parents took me when I was a child. I’ve photographed all over the park – though I certainly have not done everything there that can be done, and I’ll continue to photograph the place. On this visit I went without any real preconceived ideas about what I wanted to shoot. Often when I go to such a place I have at least some such ideas – perhaps I’m thinking about wildlife, or maybe I want to photograph in fog, or there might be a forecast of high surf. But this time? I think I just wanted to go there and be in the old familiar landscape of sun and waves and birds and all the rest.

I arrived early, just after the park opened, and when I drove it there were few others there yet. (Point Lobos can become very busy later in the day as tourists from the popular Monterey and Carmel areas show up.) More or less by chance I ended up down at iconic Weston Beach, where I stopped when I saw some arrangements of shoreline boulders that seemed to present some possibilities and because the early morning light was glancing off of sea stacks and islands to the south. I shot here for perhaps a couple of hours and then decided to head back over the Whalers Cove, where I can sometimes photograph interesting birds. When I didn’t see the birds there that I hoped for, I decided to shoulder my gear and take the trail along the dramatic north shore, hoping for some soft light. This little scene caught my attention along the trail, at first because of the interesting back-light, but I soon saw a lot more potential here, especially with the trees tilting at wild angles.

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

Winter Oaks, Morning Mist

February 25, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning mist swirls around Glacier Point beyond the silhouetted branches of winter oak trees, Yosemite Valley.

This morning proved – yet again – that there is “always something to see” if I’m just out there looking. We had stayed overnight in The Valley the night before, following the opening reception for Yosemite Renaissance 28, the annual juried exhibit of work created by artists inspired by and working in and around Yosemite National Park. (It is a wonderful show and you should stop by the Museum Gallery in the Valley if you are in the Valley during the next few months.) After heading out for a late dinner with a group of other participants after the reception, we got to bed quite late and the idea of waking up well before dawn to photograph was not sounding as appealing as it sometimes can. It didn’t help that the weather forecast was for clouds and a chance of rain or snow.

I woke up at 5:30 and reset my alarm for the relatively late hour of 6:30, thinking that whatever photography there might be would be almost outside my door and realizing that sunrise would not be until after 7:00 a.m. I got up, quickly dressed and grabbed camera gear, headed out the door and started walking. In the pre-dawn light I could see that the clear areas of the sky were quickly diminishing and that clouds were ringing the Valley. I ended up in nearly deserted Cooks Meadow, where I made a few photographs of trees and cliffs and so forth. Then it started to rain lightly. I kept shooting a bit longer, but soon realized that I couldn’t really stay out there since I had not thought to bring anything waterproof for me or my gear. I retreated to a nearby shuttle bus stop and found shelter under its roof. Now of all the places to look for aesthetic inspiration in the Sierra, a Yosemite Valley shuttle stop might be very close to the least likely. However, finding myself in one and with nothing else to do, I began to look around to see what I could see from this small sheltered area. First I noticed a large granite face to my east that was becoming reflective in the light rain, and I shot a few photographs in that direction. Then I looked up through the branches of dormant oak trees toward Glacier Point and saw clouds swirling about it and nearby pinnacles and trees, occasionally broken enough to allow some of the sunrise light to create a glow behind the mist. And there you have it – the first photograph I have made from under the roof of a shuttle stop… ;-)

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: point

Backcountry Road, Desert Mountains

Surf, Weston Beach

Monterey Cypress Trunks

Winter Oaks, Morning Mist

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