Tag Archives: ridge

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

Point Reyes and Drakes Bay

July 1, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Drakes Bay and the Point Reyes Peninsula, viewed from near Mount Vision on Inverness Ridge

After photographing very early in the morning along the shores of Tomales Bay near the town of Inverness, I continued along the road to Point Reyes and soon entered the national seashore. There was a possibility that I might try to meet up with a group of people who planned to photograph the herds of tule elk a bit later in the morning, but at this point I had some time to kill before that might occur. I wasn’t quite sure where I was going to shoot, so I was sort of “following my nose” and the light, atmosphere, and other conditions and waiting to see where I might end up. I had a general idea that it might be interesting to go all the way out to the point itself, where the morning light might illuminate some of the cliffs along Drakes Bay that don’t get that sort of light later in the day.

However, long before I got close to that area I passed a turn-off that I had often noticed and wondered about, a road labelled Mount Vision. With one option looking just about as good as any other option, I decided to head up that road to see what I could see. The road climbs quickly, more or less switchbacking up a steep include and up a few valleys before more or less leveling off high up on Inverness Ridge, actually ascending to the top of the ridge in a few spots and providing panoramic views both towards the ocean and back towards Tomales Bay. Although it wasn’t exactly foggy – at least not in the form that is common here much of the year – the atmosphere was obscured and out at the far end of the peninsula the curving end of Point Reyes was a bit hard to see, and there was a distinct blue quality to the haze that didn’t seem like it was going to work especially well for a color photograph. So I started thinking that this scene might work better in black and white. Soon I saw this steep foreground ridge with its tall trees and dark shaded elements and it seemed like its angle and darker tones might set off the lighter and less contrasty elements of the landscape in the distance, from the tree-filled valley in the middle of the frame to the barely visible peninsula near the horizon.

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: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Tree Covered Hillside, Cliff

June 16, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early autumn afternoon back-light on high country trees and shadows on a sandstone cliff face, Zion National Park

Perhaps surprisingly, trees were a big draw for me during my several visits to Zion National Park in October last year, and not just the trees that were getting their fall color. The junipers and pines are also intriguing, especially when backed by sandstone or lit from behind by low angle light as in this photograph.

This area near the eastern boundary of the park has intrigued me but also puzzled me each time I have stopped there. Nearly is a significant and named park feature that seems to be the main reason for stopping. It is an impressive geological feature… but, for the life of me, I have not been able to find a way to make an interesting photograph of it. Yet each time I passed by, I stopped and looked and pondered and (most often) did not photograph it. However, with each successive stop I began to pay more attention to other features in this spot: the big cliff on the other side of the valley on which colors fade from gray-white to red, the many trees that stand with enough space between them to allow back-light to pick them off individually, and more.

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

Trees on Granite Ridge

May 23, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Rugged trees growing along the top of a glaciated granite ridge, Yosemite National Park

I made this photograph on my first visit of the season to the Tioga Pass area of the Yosemite National Park high country. I managed to be there on the first and second open days. This was an unusual though perhaps not unprecedented sort of opening, in that there was a record low amount of snow in the Sierra as the warm season began, and this was the second of two back-to-back low-snowfall winters. This season was an odd one. I was in the Sierra back in early fall and it seemed like we might actually have an early and wet winter. Certainly things played out that way through the end of 2012 – but then the tap was shut off and there was precious little precipitation at all during the first part of 2013. As you can see in the photograph, there was still some snow around, but it looked more like late June or even early July of a more typical year.

The photograph was made near a very popular location along Tioga Pass Road, though I walked more or less the opposite direction from the objects of everyone else’s interest to find a vantage point that let me photograph back across this granite ridge, littered with glacial erratic boulders and the debris from exfoliation, and supporting a few trees. The morning light slanted in from behind the ridge and the trees and left a bluish haze between this ridge and the even larger granite ridge across a deep valley.

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

First Light, Red Rock Cliffs

May 18, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

First morning light shines on plants along a red rock ridge at the base of a cliff-lined amphitheater in the Kolob Canyons area of Zion National Park

This photograph was made in the Kolob Canyon area of Zion National Park, a less-developed area of the park, accessed by a dead-end road and with virtually no services aside from a small ranger station near the entrance. Being a good distance from the main, popular destination of Zion Canyon, far fewer people seem to visit this area. We visited on a very cold fall morning, arriving well before the sun light had worked its way down into the canyons.

In may places there are very tall cliffs to the east, and sometimes, as here, they form amphitheaters of red rock. As we came to this part of the canyon, the sun had risen high enough that some of its light was able to find a way down into the canyon and begin to pick off ridges, aretes, and bit of vegetation – though the main cliffs still remained in shadow.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: ridge

Point Reyes and Drakes Bay

Tree Covered Hillside, Cliff

Trees on Granite Ridge

First Light, Red Rock Cliffs

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