Tag Archives: sand

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

Elephant Seals and Blue Water

August 17, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Elephant seals resting on a Southern California beach at the edge of the water

This time of year, a lot of elephant seal photographs are likely to be “elephant seals napping/resting/sleeping on beach” photographs, since that seems to be how these critters spend the bulk of their time. If 100 of them are around the beach, perhaps two are out for a swim, and occasionally one or two might move around a bit or engage in some biting, butting battles with one another, but the rest pretty much must there, occasionally flipping some sand on their backs or scratching somewhere.

This large group was crowded together tightly right along the edge of the wave line. For the most part there was little or no action, though occasionally one would come or go, or one might jockey for a more favorable position in the pile. I realized that if I moved further away from their position that I could shoot back over them right along the beach, and once I got to this camera position I realized that the wet sand beautifully reflected the blue of the sky.

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

Rocky Beach, Cove, and Fog

July 25, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A rocky beach and cove on a foggy summer morning along the Big Sur coast

On July 4 (of all days!) I headed out rather early so that I could make it to the upper Big Sur coastline before the tourist traffic arrived. I succeeded, and there were very few people when I arrived on the foggy coast and drove slowly south while looking for photographs. It being a major holiday, within a few hours the Pacific Coast Highway was filled with visitors, and I turned around and headed back home.

I like several things about this photograph, and most of them have to do with the fact that, in many ways, there is little all that special about the scene. I’m not sure that I could even find this particular cove again, at least not without some careful searching — this coastline is almost a continuum of such places, and almost anywhere you stop and look around a bit you can find such scenes. The fog is another typical element, especially in the summer months, when many visitors are surprised to find that the beautiful sunny scenes that they have seen in photographs are the exception rather than the rule. A typical summer morning in this region? Fog! To many of us Californians, however, this is part of the appeal. On a day when only a few miles inland the temperatures were well into the ninety degree range and perhaps higher, along this coastline I could enjoy the welcome and cool and damp of the coastal fog.

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

Rocks, Sand, Wood

February 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Colorful detritus of rocks, sand, and wood along the desert floor of Death Valley National Park

Death Valley National Park is landscape on the gigantic scale and a landscape of extremes. Elevations range from below sea level to over 11,000′ At the right time of year you can stand in 90 degree or hotter temperatures in the lowest place and look up to see snow on the highest peaks. It is well-known that the heat and aridity are extreme. The scale of the place is stupendous. When I first traveled in the park it reminded me, perhaps in a surprising way, of monumental landscapes that I had seen in The Yukon and Alaska, where the land seems to go on farther than one can see. Because there is so little vegetation, the geology of this desert landscape is laid bare, and rugged strata are easy to see.

But there are also surprises right underfoot. At the right time during the right years (and this photo was not made at such a time) small plants and wildflowers emerge and insects and other small critters can be seen. Some of these intimate landscape scenes seem more mundane, but they also tell stories worth hearing. This small patch of earth is at the base of some small, eroded hills along the east side of Death Valley where I have stopped from time to time. It is not an obviously special place – there is no parking lot or sign. The first time I went there to photograph in the evening I looked down and noticed the dense collection of multi-colored rocks, dead plants, and sand, and now when I go back there I seem to always end up looking for the same thing. The curving bit of dried wood was once a plant eking to a life at the edge of the main valley. These rocks are likely evidence of the surprising role that water plays in the formation of this landscape, having been washed down from those various strata and formation high in the Amargosa Range, leaving traces of blue, pink, purple, tan, and green minerals. And below and mixed in with all of this is the omnipresent sand, deposited and moved to and fro by Valley winds.

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

Dunes, Evening

February 15, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Receding layers of sand dunes in evening light, Death Valley National Park

After a very long day spent driving a lengthy backcountry gravel road through mountainous terrain, I headed back to my camp at Furnace Creek to take care of camp business and grab something to eat. As I usually do in Death Valley, I scheduled my day around a morning subject and an evening subject. Since the morning work had lasted so long, I was thinking of something closer for the evening and, besides, by the time I was ready to shoot it was probably too late to travel very far in the remaining light before the early sunset of this December day. So I decided to travel up the valley a bit to well-known dunes, where I can almost always find something interesting to photograph if I just go looking.

I stopped some distance from the “usual location,” loaded up some basic equipment, and wandered out into a likely looking section of the terrain that would probably not seem all that special to those seeing the area for the first time. (That’s easy to understand, when the impressive and large sand dunes tower above everything else not far from here!) But I know there is a wealth of interesting things to be found even in what appears to be the plainest of the dunes – conjunctions of light and shadow, textures of sand, tracks of small creatures, plants poking through the sand, and more. When I arrived the low sunlight was just about to leave this area, so I worked quickly, trying to take advantage of fleeting moments of shadow and light. As I came to the top of a low dune I saw this complex terrain of dunes and shadows stretching in front of me.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sand

Rocky Beach, Cove, and Fog

Rocks, Sand, Wood

Dunes, Evening

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