Tag Archives: road

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: People, Photographs: Sports

Lance Armstrong, Stage One, 2010 Amgen Tour of California

May 17, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Lance Armstrong riding to the starting line for stage one of the 2010 Amgen Tour of California professional bicycle road race.

The 2010 Amgen Tour of California started this weekend with a road stage traveling from Nevada City to Sacramento, California. I made the ridiculously long drive up and back to shoot the stage, starting in Nevada City perhaps three hours before the start of the race, later making an abortive attempt to intercept the peloton just south of the town of Auburn, and then making it to the finish in Sacramento, where I found a spot about 200 meters from the finish line.

Since I’m not photographing the race officially – now that would be a kick!* – I take my own idiosyncratic approach to photographing the event. I try to shoot the start of the race, an intermediate point (if possible), and then the finish. But shooting actual racing from the sidelines isn’t an easy thing. With this in mind I also photograph a lot of other “stuff” that surrounds the event of the race. Today I first shot some of the crowds in the middle of old Nevada City, then walked the portion of the course that looped through the downtown area before it heads out onto the open road. But my main plan was to spend the hour or so right before the race in the team area, where it is often possible to grab some good close shots of many of the riders. One of the strange and wonderful things about pro cycling, at least in the United States, is that you can more or less walk right up to some of the biggest names in the sport, and right before the race they usually ride through the crowd to get to the starting line.

I picked a few likely team vehicles and hung out, eventually getting a good series of photographs of sprinter Mark Cavendish, the eventual winner of the stage. (I’ll post some of these photos later.) Then I picked out a spot at the lower end of the team area, knowing the eventually just about all of the riders would have to pass by within feet of me… including Lance Armstrong.

I have a number of photographs from previous Tours and other cycling events posted in my gallery.

* Believe it or not, this landscape photographer (and ex-cyclist) sometimes fantasizes about photographing a stage from the back of a motorcycle. Yeah, hard to believe. :-)

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM at 400mm
ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/2000 second

keywords: amgen, tour, of, california, stage, one, 2010, bicycle, road, race, pro, professional, usa, north america, sports, nevada, city, lance, armstrong, radioshack, team, starting, riding, line, smile

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

Rocky Creek Bridge, Big Sur

May 4, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A natural bridge in front of manmade Rocky Creek Bridge along the Big Sur Coastline, California.

This scene is becoming a sort of personal icon in my photography of the California coastline. I have made a couple black and white photographs of the location that are among my very favorite photographs, but I’ve been meaning to work on a color photograph of this spot. There are at least three general conditions in which this spot gets what I regard as interesting light: fairly early morning when the light slants down toward the ocean from over the coastal Big Sur hills, late afternoon in warm light, and during various types of cloud and fog conditions. This version is from the first of these – photographed relatively early in the day when portions of the scene are backlit but some light hits parts of the scene directly after the sun rises above the tall mountains to the east.

Believe it or not, I still don’t think I’ve fully worked this scene – and I have several other ideas of how I would like to shoot it when the conditions are just right.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM at 360mm
ISO 200, f/11, 1/250 second

keywords: natural, manmade, bridge, rocky, creek, pacific, ocean, sea, shore, shoreline, coast, highway, 1, one, rock, island, surf, wave, arch, beach, spring, morning, light, bird, gull, cliff, hill, steep, ridge, monterey, carmel, landscape, seascape, nature, scenic, travel, road, drive, stock

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Moving Rock, Overcast Morning Sky – Racetrack Playa

April 4, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

A “moving rock” beneath overcast morning skies at the Racetrack Playa, Death Valley.

First a bit of background about “the Racetrack,” the location of the famous “moving rocks” in Death Valley National Park. About 25 miles out in the desert back-country of the park on a very bad gravel road there is an isolated and desolate playa known as “the Racetrack.” (For those considering a visit, getting to the Racetrack is no trivial matter. The drive takes nearly two hours one-way and the road is awful, with some of the worst wash-board surface I’ve ever encountered. There are absolutely no services along the road or at the Racetrack – no water is available and your cell phone won’t work.) The name of the place comes, in some circuitous way, from the mysterious rocks that have clearly traveled across the playa, sometimes many hundreds of yards, and left tracks gouged into the playa surface. The most likely explanation for the phenomenon involves a combination of a periodically flooded playa, extremely high winds, and rare occasions when it is cold enough to freeze the surface of collected water, locking the rocks in place and allowing the wind to move them. I’ve never heard anything concrete about the frequency of this alignment of conditions, but as far as I know no one has ever observed the rocks actually moving, nor is there any indication that they have moved recently.

I’ve been out there three times in the past, and had great conditions for doing photography. On this visit I had plans to photograph in sunset and sunrise light and to attempt night photography of the rocks under the full moon. (I did the latter once before, but was less familiar than I am now with how to best do this with a DSLR.) Since I’ve had such good luck with weather and lighting conditions in the past, I suppose I was due for less than optimum conditions… and that is what I encountered. Shortly after arriving at the playa the sky was covered by high, thin clouds. Except for a brief moment close to sunset this made late day photography difficult. The overcast stuck around until I left then next morning, making the planned full moon night photography an impossibility, and the morning light was also challenging.

That said, I’m still glad I went. Standing in the middle of this empty playa completely alone as the day ends or begins is an amazing experience that few people get to have. And I did manage to bring back a few photographs that I think will “work.” This one was shot fairly early in the morning at what might have been around sunrise, if a sunrise had actually occurred.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 17-40mm f/4 L at 17mm
ISO 200, f/16, 1/8 second

keywords: moving, sliding, rock, race, track, racetrack, playa, death valley, national, park, california, usa, north america, morning, cloudy, sky, earth, cracked, dry, arid, desert, mountain, snow, covered, inyo, landscape, nature, travel, scenic, mystery, track, trail, phenomenon, lippencott, mine, road, stock

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: People, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Woman Walking, Red Awnings

March 16, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A woman walks past red shop awnings and downtown building wall along a San Francisco Street.

This shot was made on a very shaded side street not too far from Union Square in San Francisco. The blurred figure is intentional – part of a series I’m working on – since this handheld shot was made at a slow shutter speed of 1/20 second using a 50mm lens on a full frame body. Part of the idea was to place the walker (or allow her to place herself!) in an interesting location relative to all of the other objects spread horizontally across the wide frame: the display windows with the red overhands, the green trash can, the tall black lamppost, and the two manhole covers in the street. The games for me on this type of image include finding the basic composition and then finding and timing the shot of the right passer-by.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
ISO 200, f/8, 1/20 second

keywords: street, urban, san francisco, california, usa, north america, travel, woman, walking, sidewalk, street, manhole, cover, light, pole, garbage, trash, waste, can, concrete, wall, pattern, red, awning, store, shop, window, person, downtown, road, geometry, pattern, stride, stock

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