Tag Archives: rocks

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

Beach and Rocks, Whalers Cove

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Beach and Rocks, Whalers Cove - Large rocks and a sandy beach below the bluffs at Whalers Cover, Point Lobos State Reserve.
Large rocks and a sandy beach below the bluffs at Whalers Cover, Point Lobos State Reserve.

Beach and Rocks, Whalers Cove. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. March 29, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Large rocks and a sandy beach below the bluffs at Whalers Cover, Point Lobos State Reserve.

For some reason this little vignette caught my attention when I visited Point Lobos one morning in late March. The spot is a section of the curving beach at the inside of Whalers Cove, where a bluff sits above short cliffs at the edge of the sand. This is another of those spots that I have visited for literally decades, yet never photographed. Although I have photographed nearby I don’t think I have any photographs of this little beach area at all, but I’ve been eyeing it during my last few visits.

The cove itself is an appealing spot, somewhat different from many other parts of Point Lobos. Those tend to feature quite rugged seashore, often with cliffs and rocks that run right down into the surging water of the Pacific Ocean. But this cove is doubly protected from the ocean, by being a cove and by having an entrance that does not face straight out toward the ocean. It is filled with kelp beds and is a good place to look for sea lions very close to the shore. (Several were hanging out, wrapped in kelp and lounging around, not more than a few feet from the shore.)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Shoreline Fences, San Francisco Bay

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Shoreline Fences, San Francisco Bay - Shoreline fences along the edge of the San Francisco Bay with moored boats and, in the distance, the Oakland shoreline and East Bay hills.
Shoreline fences along the edge of the San Francisco Bay with moored boats and, in the distance, the Oakland shoreline and East Bay hills.

Shoreline Fences, San Francisco Bay. San Francisco, California. April 20, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Shoreline fences along the edge of the San Francisco Bay with moored boats and, in the distance, the Oakland shoreline and East Bay hills.

This photograph was made from a spot that many San Francisco Giants fans know rather well – the Third Street Bridge that is right next to AT&T Park. There were few Giants fans around when I made this photograph though, since it was quite early in he morning on a weekday. The camera is pointing almost but not quite directly into the early morning sun, which shines through a luminous morning haze over the bay on a very still morning.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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.

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

Coal Chute Point and The Pit

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Coal Chute Point and The Pit - Coal Chute Point, the Pit, and the rugged shoreline of Point Lobos State Reserve, California.
Coal Chute Point and The Pit - Coal Chute Point, the Pit, and the rugged shoreline of Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

Coal Chute Point and The Pit. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. March 29, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Coal Chute Point, the Pit, and the rugged shoreline of Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

(Shortly after posting this, another photographer wrote to suggest that I might consider renaming the image to “Point and Chute.” ;-)

For all the years – decades, actually, and more than a few – that I’ve been visiting Point Lobos, there are still places that I have not gotten around to visiting within the boundaries of the park. Among them are some headlands not far from Whalers Cove that I’ve looked at for a long time… and then always headed off to some other part of the reserve without visiting them. Earlier this week I visited Point Lobos with no particular goal in mind aside from making some photographs, and I somehow finally ended up in this picturesque area that offers some quite different views from those found in the areas that more directly face out into the Pacific. (While it is, indeed, picturesque… the place names are not. Coal Chute Point? The Pit?)

The light in this photograph is somewhat subdued, at least in comparison to some of the photographs you might see of such a place, typically shot in the evening when the sky is at its most colorful. (Yes, I’ve certainly made my share of those photographs at Point Lobos, too!) But this light had a different sort of appeal, and it continuously changed during my half day there. When I arrived some fog was just clearing near the coast. It was a strange pattern – fog way inlands that looked more like the typical winter valley tule fog than the summer coastal fog. In fact, as is frequently the case in winter, it was clear at the coast. But somewhat surprisingly there was a regular old fog bank lurking a ways off the shoreline – and later in the day it moved in on the coast. Along with this there were high, thin clouds from a weather front that was passing well to the north. These conditions can still provide directional light but light which is softer and can fill in the shadows a bit – making it possible to shoot in places and at times of the day when the light might otherwise be too harsh. For this photograph I decided to “go wide,” and shoot with a 24mm focal length of a full frame DSLR to accentuate the distance between the foreground beach and the distant horizon and to include the full width of the curving wave as it broke on the beach.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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.

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

Fog, Surf, and Rocks

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Fog, Surf, and Rocks - Midday sun glows through coastal fog bank above offshore rocks and surf, Point Lobos State Reserve.
Midday sun glows through coastal fog bank above offshore rocks and surf, Point Lobos State Reserve.

Fog, Surf, and Rocks. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. March 29, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Midday sun glows through coastal fog bank above offshore rocks and surf, Point Lobos State Reserve.

I made a new photograph in the “barely there” series today at Point Lobos. It was a surprisingly good photography day at Point Lobos. I say this because when I started out this morning things did not look very promising at all. At my home, it was cloudy and gray – but since at least one weather forecast mentioned sun down in the Monterey Peninsula area, I decided to give it a try. As I drove south it got worse – I ended up in very thick fog during the first 30 minutes or so of my drive. However, recalling that when there is inland fog this time of year there is often clearing at the coast, I decided to keep going. A few miles from Monterey the skies began to clear, leaving some pockets of fog here and there with high thin clouds above. Now things were looking up! High, thin clouds can provide excellent conditions for many kinds of landscape shooting, since these conditions soften that shadows and take the harsh edge off of the light.

Arriving at Point Lobos I could see there was fog a good distance off shore, but beautiful light was shining through the forest along the entrance road. I headed down to Whalers Cove and went for a hike around the far side of the cove, and ended up spending the better part of three hours poking around in this area. By the time I got back to my car it was lunch time, and I decided to at least head out to the west-facing shoreline to look around before leaving. When I got there, the offshore fog bank had moved in and was starting to flow across the shoreline. A bit further south I could see the backlit fog lit brilliantly by the sun and almost obscuring the rocks and islands in the Bird Island area. In fact, by the time I got my camera on the tripod, these islands had completely disappeared. I waited a bit, and their shapes began to again barely emerge from the fog.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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.