Tag Archives: reservoir

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Bear Gulch Reservoir

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Bear Gulch Reservoir
Spring at Bear Gulch Reservoir, Pinnacles National Park

Bear Gulch Reservoir. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Spring at Bear Gulch Reservoir, Pinnacles National Park.

This small reservoir sits at the upper end of a very popular trail through caves at Pinnacles National Park. The area has been in my consciousness for decades. The caves were perhaps the “main attraction” when my family visited the park (then a national monument) when I was just a kid, so I distinctly remember emerging from the canyon at the upper end of the caves to arrive at this reservoir. I’m not sure of its history, but I suspect that the reservoir has been there a very long time, certainly before it was even a a national monument.

The reservoir is relatively sheltered in the bottom of this canyon, and the water was very still on the day of this recent visit. The surrounding terrain is filled with the pinnacles that give the park its name. If you look closely, you may be able to see a couple of fellow hikers taking a rest in the shade next to the water in the lower left corner of the scene.

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

San Luis Reservoir, Autumn Haze

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San Luis Reservoir, Autumn Haze
San Luis Reservoir, Autumn Haze

San Luis Reservoir, Autumn Haze. Central California. November 21, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Soft light and autumn atmosphere obscure the view across the San Luis Reservoir

Since I have previously described the circumstances of photographing this scene, I’ll keep this description short. The San Luis Reservoir is a huge manmade lake in central California, between the south San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Valley. I frequently pass by here as I travel to the Valley, the Sierra, and beyond.

On this day I had been out in the Valley photographing migratory birds and the landscapes in which they are found — my first such visit to the Valley this season. On the way back home I passed the reservoir in the middle of the day, when the bright, late-autumn sun was reflecting off the surface of the lake and making the clouds above the distance mountains glow.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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

Boat, San Luis Reservoir

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Boat, San Luis Reservoir
Boat, San Luis Reservoir

Boat, San Luis Reservoir. California Hills. November 21, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two fisherman in a very small boat on the very large surface of the San Luis Reservoir on a cloudy and hazy autumn day

Returning from my first Central Valley winter bird photography excursion of the new season, I passed by San Luis Reservoir in the middle of the day when soft clouds hung above the mountains across the water and the sun made the hazy atmosphere glow. I usually just drive right past this place — which isn’t easy to access, even though the road runs right next to it — but I decided to figure out how and where to stop and make some photographs.

I found a high overlook at the visitor center that stands at the north end of the huge earthen dam, and from here there was a panoramic view of the surface of the lake and the surrounding California hills, which are mostly golden at this point in the early winter season. (Before long, after the first real rains, they will turn “impossibly green.”) As I photographed landscape subjects I noticed one very small fishing boat on the otherwise-empty surface of the huge reservoir.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Low Water, San Luis Reservoir

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Low Water, San Luis Reservoir
Low Water, San Luis Reservoir

Low Water, San Luis Reservoir. Central California. November 21, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Low water at the San Luis Reservoir, Autumn

California is currently in the third of three years of historically bad drought conditions. Water is power in the state — and a lot of politics has gone on around the acquisition of water, the use (and misuse) of water, and the construction of water projects. I’ve lived in the state long enough to have been in the valley now filled by this huge reservoir before it was filled. I have a faint memory of traveling across the valley bottom in a car with my dad at the wheel, looking at things that he told me were soon to be submerged — I have a specific recall of a bit of roadway and a bridge. That valley is long gone now, having been filled by the late 1960s.

The reservoir is an unusual one. The water it holds is pumped up into the reservoir from below and stored from year to year, producing some electrical power when the water flows back down from the reservoir to the valley. Essentially, water goes both directions though the dam! At the end of this third drought year the water level is extremely low — as low as I recall seeing it — and some of the huge structures at the dam are well above the water line. This is partly a photograph of those structures, partly a record of a phase in California’s water crisis, and partly a juxtaposition of angles and surfaces and curves, all under beautiful hazy late-autumn California light.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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.