Tag Archives: reflection

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Autumn Moon Rising, Mono Lake

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Autumn Moon Rising, Mono Lake
A full autumn moon rises above Mono Lake at dusk.

Autumn Moon Rising, Mono Lake. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A full autumn moon rises above Mono Lake at dusk.

There are still a few more photographs in this series of autumn evening images from Mono Lake that I made a few years ago. These come from that pandemic photographic genre that we might call “photographs that would have been lost forever if forced isolation had not given me a great reason to look through my old files.” (Maybe you have a shorter title?) I know I’m not the only one dong this. Travel has, of course, been complicated for a year and a half. I’ve been out, and I’ve even been to Mono Lake during this interval, but the opportunities seem greatly diminished. But there are tens of thousands of raw files in my archives, and it has been productive to spend time going back through them and discovering things I had left behind. (How that happens would be a great subject for a long post sometime.)

On this autumn evening I timed by arrival at Mono Lake for right around sunset. I knew that the full moon would rise over those distant mountains east of Mono Basin, and I expected that the moon world rise while there was still some light in the sky. This is ideal in many ways, since the remaining ambient light is often colorful, it illuminates landscape details, and it reduces the contrast between the bright moon and the darker scene. In several of the photographs —working very quickly! — I used a much longer focal length to enlarge the moon. But for this one I backed off and included much more of the surrounding landscape and the lake.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Mono Lake Moonrise

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Mono Lake Moonrise
Early autumn full moon rising over Mono Lake, California.

Mono Lake Moonrise. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early autumn full moon rising over Mono Lake, California.

This is a photograph of that magical moment when an early-autumn full moon rises above the mountains to the east of Mono Lake while there is still a bit of sunset or early twilight light in the sky. I’ve experienced this here quite a few times, and I often time my arrival at this point for this hour when it is full moon time. On this evening it all worked out perfectly: intense color in the sky as the moon appeared, plus sky color reflected on the surface of the lake, interspersed with blue areas where surface turbulence broke up the reflection.

Photographing a full moon is a bit trickier than it might appear at first glance, especially if you want to include the landscape in the scene, too. Once it is dark or close to it, the difference between the light on the landscape and light of the moon is huge — the moon is essentially a daylight exposure, while that landscape is much darker. Even with a camera that had enough dynamic range to capture both of those extremes, you would either end up with a well-exposed moon and a nearly invisible landscape or a nicely exposed landscape and featureless white disk of a moon. One approach is to time the photograph so that the moon in in the sky before it is fully dark. Ideally, this means photographing the moon a bit before it is truly “full” — or photographing at a time of year when there is still light on the landscape when a truly full moon rises.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Windows and Shadows

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Windows and Shadows
The shadows of passing figures on a pair of windows and a wall in Manhattan.

Windows and Shadows. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The shadows of passing figures on a pair of windows and a wall in Manhattan.

This somewhat mysterious-looking photograph comes from a few years back on a visit to New York City. It was late in the day, and we found ourselves wandering along the Highline Park, the elevated park along a portion of the west side of Manhattan. The park wanders past all sorts of Manhattan features — apartments, hotels, businesses, parking, streets, and more. In such places unusual and fleeting lighting effects can occur, some of them as magical as the light I look for in the natural world. Among them is the potential for light to reflect back and forth among multiple reflective surfaces. This often softens the light and directs it into places where you might not expect it. That was the case here, as the light worked its way down into this urban canyon in the same way it does in the red rock canyons of the Southwest.

This photograph also exemplifies why I like to work with small and light cameras in urban environments — rather than using the larger, tripod-mounted gear I often use in the natural landscape. Here things happen quickly, often with little warning, and quickly disappear. Being able to respond quickly is critical, and this ability to work quickly and spontaneously often turns out to be far more important than having larger and objectively “better” gear. The ghostly shadows of the passing figures were gone within seconds.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Oregon Sky

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Oregon Sky
A still lake, a band of forest shoreline, and sky with wildfire smoke in the Cascade Lakes region of Oregon.

Oregon Sky. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A still lake, a band of forest shoreline, and sky with wildfire smoke in the Cascade Lakes region of Oregon.

This, I suppose, is sort of a vacation photograph — a subject “snapped” with a handheld camera while on a hike. “Not a normal vacation snap!,” you say? Well, OK. To be honest, I’m not a very reliable family vacation photographer. I have to remind myself to make those “normal” (and important!) straightforward photographs of people and activities. And, somewhat sad to say, I came back with none of those at all from my recent family camping trip in the Cascade Lakes region of Oregon.

But I did bring this back. One morning, before joining the rest of the gang for morning camp festivities, I went for a short hike along the shoreline of Lava Lake. It was a very quiet and slow morning. I don’t think I met more than a couple of other hikes and the biggest action was the passing of a couple of kayakers. The lake was still since the day’s winds and not started yet, and there was a wildfire smoke haze in the sky. In this part of Oregon, at least on this day when the smoke obscured more distant features, the open sky dominated the landscape.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

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