Tag Archives: reflection

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California

Shoreline Building, China Camp

January 14, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A shoreline building extends over the edge of San Francisco Bay at China Camp

I had been watching the reflections on the calm water of this lagoon since I first arrived here in the morning. Earlier I had been on a high bluff behind the camera position for this photograph, looking down at this village and the curve of the beach of its small lagoon. The clouds thinning behind a departing Pacific weather front were starting to allow sun light to pass, yet still filtering and softening it. This light was falling on the smooth surface of this water in this relatively quiet area of the San Francisco Bay, and creating all sorts of interesting reflections.

Eventually I walked down to the village and among its old buildings, gravitating toward the shoreline. I first photographed an old pier and then investigated a building from which it extends. From here I was able to look out across the lagoon toward a further peninsula and the light of the sun on the clouds. This was technically a bit of a tricky photograph since it includes brightly sun-lit clouds right above and to the left of the building, but also includes deep shadows below and on the near side of the building. To be honest, I was unsure of what exposure would work best and provide the best balance between avoidance of blown out sky and enough shadow detail to pull it back in past without problems with image noise – so I bracketed. I bracketed like nobody’s business – making something like five exposures in the series. Ironically, in the end I was able to extract all of the detail I needed from a single exposure!

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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

Rat Rock Island, Winter Sky

January 8, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Clouds from a dissipating winter storm above Rat Island and the northern San Francisco Bay

For such a beautiful little island, this place certainly has a nasty name! I have intended to visit this place for a few years now, but had never quite gotten around to it – so I used a San Francisco photowalk devoted to “long exposure photography” as the impetus to finally make it. We had started much earlier in the morning in the Marin Headlands, photographing San Francisco Bay, and at that time a winter weather front was making its way through the area and producing a rather cloudy dawn. Leaving there, the group headed to the small state park where this scene is located. I arrived there before almost anyone else, so I headed to this location and had it to myself for a few minutes.

The previous evening some had been discussing the weather prospects, and I had pointed out that often the most interesting skies come on the heels of awful weather, and this moment serves as an example. An hour earlier and a few miles away, the overcast was thick and gray, but here the trailing edge of the storm was bringing layers of clouds that were thinning and allowing the early morning light through. But this quality of sky and light lasted only a short time, and less than an hour later these beautiful early morning clouds were largely gone.

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

Dawn, New Years Day 2013

January 5, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Dawn light above a San Joaquin Valley marsh on New Years Day, 2013

I didn’t manage to post a real New Years Day photo on New Years Day this year… since I was out and about well before dawn on that morning, thinking that it would be even more fun to greet the new year in the field than to just share a post about it! We were staying in the Sierra foothills and had enjoyed a wonderful New Years eve with friends in the area the evening before. Although we had planned to “call it a night” soon enough to turn in early in anticipation for a pre-5:00 a.m. wake-up call, it was after midnight when we finally got to bed.

We were up at 4:45 – yes, on New Years Day! – and out the door shortly after 5:15, and on our way out into the San Joaquin Valley, where a small group of us assembled at about 6:30 in the darkness. After sleepy “Happy New Year!” wishes we headed off into the first pre-dawn light to look for geese and cranes and other critters. Within a few minutes I stopped along the levee road by these trees to make my first real photograph of the new year as the first light began to turn high clouds over the Sierra a beautiful shade of pink.

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Canyon Reflections, Utah

November 25, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Reflections in the surface of a slot canyon stream, Utah

Among photographers that I know, finding ways to photograph the surface of flowing river and creek water is almost a bit of a game or even an obsession. There is something very appealing about either stopping the motion of the water, or about using longer shutter speeds to let the water blur, revealing the smooth patterns of flowing water and the interesting colorations that we can otherwise easily overlook. People I know seem to have developed their own little idiosyncratic tricks for working with this subject – special shutter speeds, an eye for particular types of reflections, and so forth.

The Utah canyons are a prime place to look for interesting reflection patterns, at least in those canyons in which the water is flowing. This narrow desert canyon contained a small, burbling steam – just enough water to be interesting and dampen boots and pants legs, but not so much as to impede progress up the canyon or make shooting difficult. The trick is to look beyond the apparent surface of the water and instead learn to look for and see the reflections instead. Part of this is looking for interesting flow and ripple patterns, such as the bit of faster moving water moving diagonally across the frame in this image. Another part is to anticipate and then find sources of reflected colored light. This photograph includes several: blue from overhead sky visible above the center of the canyon, purple and burgundy from shaded cliff faces, intense orange reflected from sunlit sandstone, and bright yellow-green from cottonwood and box elder trees.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: reflection

Shoreline Building, China Camp

Rat Rock Island, Winter Sky

Dawn, New Years Day 2013

Canyon Reflections, Utah

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