Tag Archives: rocks

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

At the Shoreline

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At the Shoreline
A peninsula of fractured and worn rocks next to the tidal zone.

At the Shoreline. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A peninsula of fractured and worn rocks next to the tidal zone.

As I wrote in another recent post, what I thought would be a quick visit to this cove turned into a rather longer one. As I started my visit I wasn’t sure that I would photograph here, but once I started looking around I found plenty of interesting subjects. After well over an hour I finally tore myself away to go photograph something else!

The location encompasses a shallow cove lined with rocks, some of which are flat and gradually head under the water, and others that are part of a small peninsula blocking the area from the open ocean. The intertidal zone is full of fascinating things — living creatures, pebbles left behind by the surf, and a pavement of upended strata. In this photograph I backed off some distance and put a long lens on the camera so that I could include the foreground boulders along with a small portion of the flat area and the rocky wall of the peninsula beyond.

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

Kelp and Patterned Rocks

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Kelp and Patterned Rocks
Kelp on patterned rocks at the high tide line along the Central California coast.

Kelp and Patterned Rocks. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Kelp on patterned rocks at the high tide line along the Central California coast.

Almost everything about this day followed no plan at all. I knew I wanted to photograph along the coast, but wasn’t sure where. I headed toward the upper Big Sur coast, but as I passed Point Lobos I thought, “Maybe here.” But I kept going, until a couple of miles later when the answer came to me: “Yes, Point Lobos.” I turned around and headed back to the reserve. I drove in and made a habitual first stop at Whalers’ Cove, then stopped at Weston Beach. Thought I’d take a quick look. That quick look lasted well over an hour.

The conditions weren’t ideal for photographing big landscapes and seascapes. It was fairly gray with what Californians sometimes call “high fog” or “coastal clouds.” While these conditions aren’t great for long views, the soft light can work well for more intimate subjects. And in this particular spot there’s no end of little things to attract my attention: kelp, shells, colorful rocks cast up onto the underlying rock patterns of folded layers, reflections, and more. At one point someone asked what I was photographing, and when I answered “whatever I can find” they just looked at me like I was nuts.

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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Ridges and Light

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Ridges and Light
Morning light on curved ridges, Death Valley National Park.

Ridges and Light. © Copyright 2022.G Dan Mitchell.

Morning light on curved ridges, Death Valley National Park.

There are many ways to tell the story of a landscape. One approach is to go for the whole thing, the epic landscape, the big view, and to put everything in the frame. This can work, and it may produce impressive and powerful images of great scale. And, to be sure, Death Valley National Park’s landscape lends itself to this with its expansive vistas, immense mountains ranges, and other striking features.

Another way to say something about a landscape is to go in the opposite direction and let small “excerpts” from the larger scene present aspects of it. The more I photograph a place the more I trend in this direction. You’ll still find me looking at those big views, but more and more I look for small bits and pieces. The texture of these rounded ridges is found all over Death Valley and is usually eroded into some combination of gullies and small, smooth hills. Here the warm-colored early morning light is sweeping across these hills, contrasting with the cooler tones of the shadows.

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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Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Night

Mono Moonrise

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Mono Moonrise
Autumn full moon rises over Mono Lake, California.

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

Autumn full moon rises over Mono Lake, California.

The scene is an autumn moonrise over Mono Lake, a scene that I often encounter on my fall photographic visits to the Eastern Sierra. I’m there often enough that it seems like I have this opportunity almost every year. I had been photographing more typical autumn subjects earlier in the day — largely the fall colors of aspen trees — but I decided to finish that activity early enough to get myself to a likely location to see and photograph the moonrise over the lake. These days, with the help of various digital tools, we can come very close to putting ourselves in precisely the right spot at precisely the right time. On this evening the moon rose in early twilight, but I continued photographing until it became quite dark.

On a technical note, there are some challenges to including the full moon in a photograph made after dark. The biggest issue is that the moon is a lot brighter than the landscape — the landscape is in darkness but it is essentially noon on the moon! There are ways to deal with this, one of which is to photograph before the landscape becomes completely dark, and I did that here. But I was pushing that boundary a bit, and I was initially unable to get the balance between the moon and the dark landscape that I was looking for. However, as sometimes happens, the sophistication of post-processing software advanced, most notably with the introduction of some powerful new selection tools in Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW. (Despite the popularity of Lightroom, I’m still a Bridge/ACR/Photoshop user.) These tools enabled me to make some important adjustments to the dark portions of this image while retaining detail in the moon. (NOTE: This is a re-working of a photograph that I had previously shared back in 2019.)

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.