Tag Archives: scenic

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Golden Gate Bridge, Winter Morning

March 19, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

San Francisco comes to life beyond the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge on a cloudy winter morning.

Passing across the Golden Gate Bridge before dawn on my way to points north, I stopped—as I often do—to see what sort of dawn light might appear. Since photographing the bridge and the bay was not my main goal for the day I did not spend a lot of time looking around for unique vantage points, instead going for a tried and true location from which I have photographed many times and in all kinds of conditions.

It was close to actual sunrise when I made this photograph, though what sun there might have been was hidden behind a thick fog bank across the bay in the direction of Oakland. Light was increasing, but many city lights were still on along the waterfront and elsewhere. One of my favorite photographs from this location is one I made at night a few years ago, a black and white image shot through this tower and with the City in the background. This is a very similar composition, though the light here is very different, with the primary subject being the immense north tower of the bridge, set between support cables and with the blue world of the early morning city and bay beyond.

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

Tugboat, Dawn, San Francisco Bay

March 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A tugboat traverses San Francisco Bay in foggy dawn light

As I often do when heading north across the Golden Gate Bridge for early morning photography, I stopped to photograph the bridge, the bay, and the City as the day began. Arriving there perhaps almost a half hour before sunrise, we drive up a ways into the hills of the Marin Headlands and walked to a popular overlook to see—and photograph—whatever the rising sun might bring.

I’m tempted to write that “it was an unusual morning,” but after photographing here many, many times I’m catching on that there is perhaps no such thing as a “typical” morning on the bay. The diversity of light and atmosphere and weather and subject is unending. On this morning there was fog, but it wasn’t too thick and, perhaps surprisingly, was mostly not at the Golden Gate itself, but over parts of San Francisco and the inner bay. The water was visible below and the sky above, but that sky was partially obscured by the patterns of high clouds from a passing weather front. All of these clouds made things rather gray and murky for a time, though as the sun rose behind the fog bank far to the east, a subtly rose-colored glow briefly colored the water of the bay. Using a very long lens I focused on the wake of a tugboat beginning its trip towards and beyond the entrance to the bay, with a bit of the San Francisco shoreline, the western span of the Bay Bridge, and the reflection of a brighter portion of the bay near Oakland beyond.

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

Forest, Fog

March 16, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Fog drifts among the trees of a Yosemite Valley forest on a winter morning

A winter morning is almost always a good time to seek out fog in the meadows of Yosemite Valley, but things did not look too promising on this particular morning. We were up very early—well before dawn—and out and about. Since we had photographed from a higher spot with expansive views the previous morning, today it seemed like a good idea to look for more intimate scenes, so we began to check out a few of the centrally located meadows where the fog often forms. However, first looks revealed perfectly clear air. We wandered a bit more and eventually ended up near Curry Village where there was one fog-filled meadow. As far as we could tell, Stoneman Meadow was the only place in the Valley with the conditions we were looking for.

In much the same way that valley-filling fog can move back and forth, thicken and thin, rise and fall, the fog in this meadow was constantly changing. At first the rapid changes made it seem that the fog might be dissipating, so I began shooting fairly quickly, hoping to get something before it was gone. But soon there was a surprising resurgence of the fog, which drifted across the meadow into surrounding trees, rose higher, and hid the view. As it again began to thin I turned my attention to a bit of nearby dense forest and photographed the trees, late and small, as the fog gradually faded away.

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

Forest, Talus, Winter Fog

March 12, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Winter fog floats across forest and talus fields, Yosemite Valley

I’ll take a cold and foggy winter morning in Yosemite over a blue sky summer day anytime! On this morning I was up reasonably early, though unsure of what I might be able to photograph. The light down in the Valley was tending toward flat and gray, so I thought that it might make sense to go to Tunnel View and hope for some early morning sun that might illuminate the various layers of clouds and mist from behind. That never happened, so I turned my attention instead to the fog down in the Valley.

It is common at this time of year for fog to form in the Valley after precipitation, and it had rained all of the previous day and was threatening to on this morning, too. When the fog starts to form, almost anything can happen. There might only be thin, wispy bits of fog below, or large clouds of fog may form and drift back and forth and up and down the Valley, lowering so that tree tops are visible or rising to cover the upper slopes of peaks and cliffs. On this morning there seemed to be thicker fog far up the Valley, but in the middle section and just below us the fog was thin enough that as it drifted across the forest some trees almost always remained visible. Photographing this was a matter of using a very long lens and then watching closely as the conditions evolved. For a while it might seem like nothing photographically special would happen, and then some combination of fingers of fog moving through trees, a bit of clearing somewhere, a sudden but silent movement of the clouds would happen, and suddenly a composition would appear out of nowhere and often just a suddenly disappear. Here the fog was drifting up into the talus slopes near the base of El Capitan.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: scenic

Golden Gate Bridge, Winter Morning

Tugboat, Dawn, San Francisco Bay

Forest, Fog

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