Tag Archives: seascape

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.

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

Pelicans Along the Coast

May 19, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A line of pelicans flies along the Point Lobos Reserve coastline

Brown pelicans are probably my favorite Pacific coast birds, and I often like to photograph them when I visit the nearby Pacific Ocean shoreline. However, that’s not at all what I was at Point Lobos to photograph on this late April morning. I was more in a landscape or seascape frame of mind. That said, this photograph is an example of how things most definitely do not happen in a slow, considered, or contemplative manner when shooting landscape subjects.

I was thinking about how to try to photograph the elements of very choppy near-shore water, the further rocks that we partially obscured by mist and spray, the subtle shadings of the offshore fog bank, and the blue tones of sky. I decided to use a long lens and try to line up something that included nearby shoreline elements juxtaposed with the more distant rocks. I wasn’t having an easy time coming up with a composition that I liked. I must have momentarily looked up from the camera, because I recall spotting this line of pelicans flying up from the south and thinking that if I could just operate fast enough I might be able to get them in the frame. Being set for landscape (manual exposure and focus, live view, small aperture, on the tripod), that meant trying to quickly and intuitively make a whole bunch of quick changes. I must have managed to do so just in time to squeeze off three frames as the line of birds passed through this gap in the rocks and continued on.

Commentary, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

Dawn, San Francisco Bay

April 6, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dawn light, fog, and high clouds over the northern shoreline of San Francisco Bay

This early morning late-winter view of San Francisco Bay looks back to the east from the Marin Headlands. The morning had started with somewhat murky conditions—high clouds above, atmospheric haze over the bay, and for along the San Francisco waterfront and across the bay toward Oakland. I was hoping for color, but the moment of sunrise was a bit disappointing in that regard. The probably was some color, but it was muted by the high clouds and haze and it happened mostly behind that fog bank floating above the East Bay.

But soon the high clouds began to pick up some color, and this pinkish glow reflected down towards the water, the fog, and the haze, gently coloring the scene. I thought that I might break up the many horizontal layers of light and color by including a it of the foreground land, and I experimented with several compositions: one that centered Angel Island in the scene, one that caught a bit of the edge of Angel Island and a bit of the Tiburon shoreline, and then this one which just included a bit of the north bay shoreline instead. Having watched so many sunrises, I still am struck by how this visual beauty arrives without a sound.

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

Headlands, Pacific Ocean, Dusk

March 5, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dusk light silhouettes the rugged Marin headlands above the Pacific Ocean disappearing into distant haze.

On a day that began with a visit to the De Young Museum (the final weekend of the David Hockney exhibit) we ended up with some hours of free time in San Francisco… so we decided to head across the Golden Gate and try to be in position somewhere for interesting evening light. We didn’t really have a concrete plan, and we could have ended up in the headlands, along the bay, or perhaps further north along the coast. We stopped for coffee and killed a bit of time in the mid-afternoon light, and by the time we finished the early winter sunset was closer than we had expected.

Looking at the late hour (hey, it was a “vacation day!”) we realized that we didn’t have nearly as much time as we imagined, so we quickly figured out that our best bet was just to head back into the Marin Headlands on the very popular Conzelman Road – yes, the place where hundreds or thousands of people go almost every evening to watch the sun set or the fog roll in (or, sometimes, just a plain old wall of fog!) over the Golden Gate. We drove up the road and the crowds were, as expected, large enough that there were few places to park. In fact, I had to pass up a few possible photographic subjects since I could not stop. Eventually we found a place to pull over and get out and take a look. It was a pretty evening, but the view of the City was not unusually spectacular and I left my camera equipment in the car and just enjoyed the evening view and crisp air. As I stood there, I saw that the backlight over the Pacific outside the golden gate was starting to produce a beautiful diffused light over the water as the atmosphere became increasingly opaque toward the horizon. So I grabbed the tripod and camera and walked up the road a ways to make a few photographs of the ocean and the steep, rugged Marin Headlands cliffs plunging toward the edge of the water.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: seascape

Mouth of the Little Sur River

Dawn, San Francisco Bay

Headlands, Pacific Ocean, Dusk

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