Tag Archives: rugged

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

Mountains, Sea, and Haze

May 28, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Spring haze, morning light, and rugged mountains meeting the Pacific Ocean, Big Sur coast

This spot marked the furthest south that I travelled on my brief photographic foray along the Big Sur coast earlier this week. Here, as in a number of other spots along this section of the Pacific Coast Highway, the route rises high above the ocean to pass through a section of very steep cliffs where the coastal mountains and the ocean meet abruptly. From this overlook the spines of a few nearby ridges were just to my south, and beyond the shoreline disappeared into the glowing atmospheric haze to the south.

One of the advantages of modern digital cameras is that they permit more flexibility and allow us to make aesthetic choices about our photographs more freely. Although I mostly “see” in color, sometimes a subject works better in black and white. Sometimes I don’t even realize this at the time of the exposure. Which is OK, since digital allows us to sometimes think less of “making the photograph” in the field and perhaps more about “bringing the image back” for full realization in the post-processing stage. In some cases, it allows us to focus more on pure capture and to put off some of the decisions we might have had to make at that point until later. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing! However, this is an example of a photograph that I knew was going to be black and white as soon as I saw the scene. Looking south along this coast on a day like this one, the air is filled with a haze made luminous by backlight. Colors are often so muted that they might as well be black and white, and the haze itself can take on a strong blue cast. Here I didn’t want that blue haze effect, but I did want the glow and the strong shapes of the ridges dropping into the sea.

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

Mouth of the Little Sur River

May 27, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Little Sur river empties into the Pacific Ocean beneath the fog-shrouded mountains of the Big Sur coastline

It has been a very busy month or so, and since my early April trip to Death Valley, aside from a quick one-day visit to Tioga Pass on opening weekend, there has been less time for photography than I would like. I finally managed to find time to break away today, and I had enough desire to photograph that I was even willing to chance the Memorial Day traffic… along the Big Sur coast. I was up very early and on the road while most people were probably sleeping in, and as I passed Carmel and headed south it wasn’t all that crowded for such a day. However, after my first hour or two of photography, the crowds began to show up. I had decided that my plan would be to get the heck out of there before this happened, and as I turned back to the north I congratulated myself on not being in the traffic jam heading south on the coast highway. My joy was short-lived, however, and the rest of my return drive took at least twice as long as usual!

But, anything to get out for a morning along this coast! It was supposed to be warm along this section of the California coast today, and there wasn’t as much fog as usual. However, right in this area a stubborn bank of fog clung to the ridges of the Big Sur mountains, and as I drove along this section of the road the temperature dropped into the fifties and the wind blew like crazy. I almost didn’t stop at this overlook above the lagoon at the outlet of the Little Sur river, thinking that the wind might simply make it impossible to get a shot with the quality I wanted, but the beautiful curve in the green water of the lagoon, the fog bank, and the whitecaps on the deep blue Pacific convinced me to stop and give it a try.

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

Desert Mountains, Rain

May 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Afternoon rain falls on peaks beyond a rising series of rugged desert mountain ridges, Death Valley National Park

This turned out to be a surprisingly and almost ridiculously productive day of photography, which was not at all what I expected as the day began nor at any number of times later in the day. Much of what happened was unplanned and the result of discovering things and of reacting intuitively to changing conditions. Prior to getting up before dawn to head to out first shooting location, my description of what I hoped would happen on this day or even of what I expected would happen would have had little in common with how it evolved. I have related some of the details of the earlier parts of the day already—sunrise light cut short by an incoming storm, the surprise discovery of abundant high desert mountain wildflowers, a snow storm, a first visit to an old historic site, and more—so I’ll just briefly mention the later part of the day. The winter storm, that brought some rain and snow to Death Valley National Park mountains, finally broke up, leaving a few showers high up in the mountains along with brilliant light coming through gaps in the thinning clouds, and these conditions lasted right on into the evening.

I made this photograph in the late afternoon. There was still plenty of rain or snow among the peaks, though the air was much clearer below and, indeed, some light was beginning to come through the clouds. Here I had a clear view across a portion of the valley, over the alluvial material at the base of the Cotton Mountains, and on up across the layered ridges toward the cloud-shrouded higher peaks. I had an idea for this as a photograph, but the light was difficulty and I knew that significant work in post would be required. Indeed, while this might seem like a simple natural landscape, the final version here is the result of significant work done after the fact in the digital darkroom.

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

Winter Meadow, Forest

April 28, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Forest and snow-topped cliffs above a winter meadow, Yosemite Valley

During this distressingly dry season in California, our three-day visit to Yosemite Valley in early March was a welcome relief. It was raining when we arrived, and it remained cloudy and wet for the entire period, with breaks in the rain but not the clouds. We were there for the opening of the Yosemite Renaissance XXIX exhibit, which continues in the Visitor Center Gallery through early March. (Stop in and take a look if you make it to the Valley. This is a wonderful annual juried show of art related to Yosemite and the Sierra. And, yes, one of my prints is there.)

The scene here is a popular and well-known Cook’s Meadow. As is normal in the winter, the grasses that are so green in spring and early summer have gone dormant, as have most of the other plants in the meadow itself. This is such a familiar scene—though always a beautiful one—that I most often would not stop to photograph. However, among the brown tones the one spots of bright red among the foreground brush caught my attention, and the light had a warm and glowing quality that was special. The light falling on the forest was very soft, filtered though thin clouds above and to the east, and snow from the passing storm covered the upper reaches of the cliff walls around the Valley.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: rugged

Mountains, Sea, and Haze

Mouth of the Little Sur River

Desert Mountains, Rain

Winter Meadow, Forest

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