Tag Archives: purple

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

San Francisco, Winter Evening

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San Francisco, Winter Evening - Downtown buildings of San Francisco, California stand beneath a winter sky at dusk.
Downtown buildings of San Francisco, California stand beneath a winter sky at dusk.

San Francisco, Winter Evening. San Francisco, California. January 1, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Downtown buildings of San Francisco, California stand beneath a winter sky at dusk.

On New Year’s Day 2012, we joined a group of “photo walkers” who were shooting some of the old military structures high in the Marin Headlands area across the Golden Gate and north of San Francisco. After meeting up with all of them and photographing these interesting old sites, we left them as they went off to photograph Rodeo Beach. (We realized that we would need to get back home a bit earlier since my plan was to leave for six days in Death Valley the next morning… and I had not yet packed!)

Since we were already in the area, we took a quick detour up to the Hawk Hill area high on Conzelman Road to check out that famous view across the Golden Gate Bridge toward San Francisco and points beyond. I don’t go here every time I’m in the area, but if I’m already there, it is about to be sunset, I have an extra half hour, and there is the potential for interesting light… what the heck! Once we got there I noticed that some winter haze was distinctly softening the light as the sun was just about to set, and this created a beautiful glowing gradient of colors in the sky and washed the City in pastel light. In this photograph I resisted the temptation to pump things (contrast and saturation) a lot, and intend tried to maintain the subtle coloration of the scene.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are 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

Two Owls, Trees and Ponds, Dusk

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Two Owls, Trees and Ponds, Dusk - Two owls in the branches of a group of trees at dusk, reflected in the waters of a pond at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge
Two owls in the branches of a group of trees at dusk, reflected in the waters of a pond at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge

Two Owls, Trees and Ponds, Dusk. Merced National Wildlife Refuge, California. February 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two owls in the branches of a group of trees at dusk, reflected in the waters of a pond at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge.

I originally posted this in an impromptu manner and out of sequence back on SuperB owl Sunday – but now it comes up “officially” in the queue. At the very end of a winter day that had begun well before dawn back up the Central Valley closer to Sacramento (in the Cosumnes River area, to be precise) we had headed south to Merced National Wildlife Refuge in search of somewhat different subject for the evening. We arrived to find some geese on the pond, but most were a bit too far off for good photography. But while we settled in to wait for whatever else might show up, I turned my attention to the beautiful and wide-open Central Valley landscape.

This little group of trees grows on a small levee between a couple of ponds in this agricultural area. (Over the past few weeks I have come to know this exact spot very well, as I have been back three times now to photograph there, with better and better luck each time.) After the sun set, some of the most beautiful light appeared – the soft and pink/purple/blue atmospheric light of dusk, when there is still some brighter color in the sky. I saw a single bird high in one of the branches of this tree and soon figured out it was an owl. I set up a composition that centered the tree – creating, I hope, a sense of quiet and stillness – and which included a bit of the sky and the beautiful reflection of the tree’s silhouette in the water. As I shot, a second owl showed up for a few seconds and I was able to get a frame with the couple together.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are 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, Photographs: Wildlife

Migratory Birds, Dusk

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Migratory Birds, Dusk - Flocks of migratory birds fly over the Merced National Wildlife Refuge at dusk, San Joaquin Valley, California
Flocks of migratory birds fly over the Merced National Wildlife Refuge at dusk, San Joaquin Valley, California

Migratory Birds, Dusk. Merced National Wildlife Refuge, California. January 28, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Flocks of migratory birds fly over the Merced National Wildlife Refuge at dusk, San Joaquin Valley, California.

I think that I’m as interested in the landscape of the Central Valley of California as I am in the migratory birds that I went there to photograph during the last weekend of January. I’m still surprised to find that this landscape is more varied than I realized for many years, even though I’ve lived in California almost all of my life and I frequently drive through the Valley on my way to the Sierra and other places. I used to think of it as “that hot place between here and there,” at least in the summer. Later I found out about the very different winter climate there, where it is often foggy for days or weeks on end. The, after I learned about the amazing annual arrival of migratory birds, I realized just how much of the Valley is waterlogged at least part of the year.

The area of the Merced National Wildlife Refuge is one such area. Located more or less between the towns of Merced and Los Banos, it holds many seasonal ponds, and these ponds are the winter homes of thousands and thousands of birds. On our visit during the final weekend of January 2012, the birds were there, all right. However, they were mostly too far away to photograph them easily except when they occasionally passed over head. But the landscape was as accessible as ever. Here I wanted to accentuate the vast sky above the flat surface of the valley, so I tilted the camera up a bit so that the flooded fields and sparse trees sat at the bottom of the frame, and the gradient of color and light fills most of the frame, interrupted by passing flocks of migratory birds.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are 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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Eureka Valley Dunes, Dusk

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Eureka Valley Dunes, Dusk - Pink dusk light on the Eureka Valley Sand Dunes, Death Valley National Park.
Pink dusk light on the Eureka Valley Sand Dunes, Death Valley National Park.

Eureka Valley Dunes, Dusk. Death Valley National Park, California. January 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Pink dusk light on the Eureka Valley Sand Dunes, Death Valley National Park.

On the second-to-last day of my January visit to Death Valley, I decided that it would make sense to exit the park to the north by way of miles of gravel roads heading into the northern portion of the park then out via more gravel and then some paved roads to Big Pine the next day, setting me up to return home over snow-free (in January!) Tioga Pass. After shooting early in the morning I headed back to my camp – at Stovepipe Wells at that time – had some breakfast, took down my camp, and packed. By the time I fueled up my car and headed north, I was a bit behind my planned schedule, but I figured that I might still make it to Eureka Valley in time to shoot in some late afternoon light.

A few hours later, after a drive including over 40 miles of gravel, I finally arrived at the site of these monumental dunes. At nearly 700 feet tall, they are supposedly the tallest dunes in the United States – or is it in North America? Eureka Vally is a lonely place, being a long drive on rough roads from any direction and almost completely without the civilized services found in some other areas of the park. When I got there, a family that had visited was just leaving, and there was one other photographer shooting high up on the dunes. I knew that I didn’t have enough time to try that, so I grabbed my gear and hiked over to one side of the dunes where their lower slopes begin to merge with the flat surface of the valley and where the last sun would hit the dunes. I shot there for a while and after the sun dropped below the ridges to the west I went looking for subjects that might benefit from the post-sunset soft and pink light. Very close to my “campsite” (which was in the back of my vehicle that night!) I saw these plants leading up toward the summit of the dunes and the higher stratified peaks beyond, and I made a few photographs in the rose-colored late light.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.