Tag Archives: sea

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

Breaking Wave

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Breaking Wave
“Breaking Wave” — Breaking winter storm wave, Northern California Coast.

Winter surf on California’s coast was so impressive between Christmas and New Year’s Day that it made national news. As happens this time of year, a powerful Pacific storm far offshore produced a huge swell. The biggest waves were upwards of 30 feet tall, and they created real danger to those who live at the coast and to visitors who ventured too close. Naturally, we headed straight over there to view (carefully) the power of nature!

The weather was pretty gray when we arrived, but the storm (which was less impressive than the waves) began to clear and rays of sunlight moved across the surface of the ocean. I went to a peninsula extending into the ocean, and from there I had close-up views of the action. I made this photograph as a huge wave rolled through one of those sunlit patches and began to break.

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

Sea of Sand

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Sea of Sand
Waves of sand dunes in soft pre-sunrise light.

Sea of Sand. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Waves of sand dunes in soft pre-sunrise light.

As per the usual plan, we headed out into the dunes in darkness, arriving at a likely location for photography while the sun was still below the horizon. At this hour the light is very soft and the colors subtle — the intense color of sunrise doesn’t arrive until a bit later. Often it is nearly silent, especially on a windless morning, and the sunrise light show begins quietly.

There is only a short interval between not-enough-light and the saturated sunrise colors, during which the light changes rapidly. I was intrigued by the view across these lower dunes toward the Kit Fox Hills, so I put on a long lens and went to work, looking for interesting arrangements of the wave-like dune forms.

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

Grove Above the Surf

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Grove Above the Surf
A small grove of old trees above the surf and silhouetted against the fog-muted shapes of coastal hills, Big Sur Coast.

Grove Above the Surf. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

A small grove of old trees above the surf and silhouetted against the fog-muted shapes of coastal hills, Big Sur Coast.

This grove of trees sits on the edge of a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean along a popular section of the Big Sur Coast. In most cases, I have usually regarded it as a bit of an obstacle, as I have to sort of work around it to photograph certain features in the area. (In fact, I also sometimes have to “work around” a small herd of cattle that sometimes grazes in the foreground meadow!) On this visit I decided to turn the tables and make the trees the subject.

This was an interesting day, and photography was at times a bit challenging. I visited during a one-day break in the string of atmospheric river storms that hit California between late December and January, and I managed to squeeze in a single morning of photography here. Damage from the storms was easy to find, with landslides and road repairs along the way. But on this morning occasional sun broke through the high overcast and made the thin fog luminous.

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

Headlands, Surf, and Fog

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Headlands, Surf, and Fog
Headlands and coastal mountains obscured by winter fog along the Big Sur Coast.

Headlands, Surf, and Fog. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Headlands and coastal mountains obscured by winter fog along the Big Sur Coast.

This is a scene that I have tried to photograph many times. When I stop to make a photograph here, it always seems like it should be easy… but it inevitably ends up being very challenging if not impossible. The subject is quite a distance away, so it requires a very long focal length. However, the long focal length magnifies issues created by air movement across the great distance, and even with though I want to evoke that soft atmosphere, it is hard to get the right balance of detail where it is needed. I tried again this past week, and decided to interpret the subject in a bit of a different manner.

A challenge is that the hazy conditions that obscure and diffuse the subject in the way I hoped for also tend to be both gray and of quite low contrast. To address that I decided on a brighter, high key rendition of the scene in which the colors are extremely subtle and the darkest tones are, objectively speaking, still at the brighter end of the scale. In a sense, the object here is to “suggest” more than to “record.”

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 | Twitter | 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.