Tag Archives: seascape

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Rat Rock Island, Hills

January 21, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Rat Rock Island and hills of the north San Francisco Bay

This remarkable little island sits just a short distance from the shoreline along the northern San Francisco Bay. Several things contribute to its visual appeal. It is unexpected, in that it is not exactly common to find such islands in this bay. It seems that what formed the island might have been a process similar to one found in coastal areas with much rougher seas, where rocky peninsulas are eventually cut off from the shoreline. The area is very quiet, in contrast to the busy north bay areas you typically might drive through to get here, and the main sounds are those of shore birds. The view beyond the island is expansive – the far side of the bay is distant enough that you the hills are little more than a think break along the horizon, and mostly you see sky and water. The shape of the island is almost but not quite symmetrical, and the little bonsai-like trees on the “summit” echo the curve of the island.

I used a nine-stop neutral density filter so that I could get a relatively long ten second exposure for this photograph. The idea was to let the slight motion of the water blur and create a smooth, glassy quality. (If the clouds had been moving faster, they might also have been blurred. Although it probably isn’t apparent in the photograph, this image is partially the result of quite a bit of work during the post-processing phase.

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

Davenport Bluffs, Sunset

January 15, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

The last light shines on coastal bluffs and Davenport, California

On this early December day I had gone off to try to join a G+ “photowalk” that was purportedly taking place that day. I was looking forward to going to a few favorite local photography locations and to meeting some people who I’ve only known online. But it was not to be! I ended up being delayed at home and couldn’t leave in time to meet the group at their first location, Henry Cowell Park. I went with Plan B and figured I would try to join up with them at lunch in Davenport. I got there and didn’t see anyone, so I figured that I was early and I drove up the coast a bit. I came back to Davenport and thought they might be in one of the two restaurants, so I picked one and went in for lunch… by myself. (I found out later that, yes, they were in the other restaurant a hundred yards south.) After lunch I went across the road to the parking area when I thought folks might meet up, but still no luck – though I did see a few photographers out on the nearby bluff. I headed out there and finally ran into a couple of people from the group… which had gone down to a nearby beach area to shoot.

Finding interesting stuff up here on the bluff, I decide to work the location I found myself in rather than heading off and looking for something else. While the location was interesting, the light was initially unpromising. However, I thought there was a chance that things might improve later so I walked around and began doing some shooting. At one point, I talked to some other photographers about the somewhat bland lighting conditions and pointed out that it seemed to me that there was at least a chance that we might get a bit of interesting light as the sun dropped to the horizon, when the light can sometimes shine in below the clouds and produce some brief but beautiful conditions. This prediction turned out to be right, and I made this photograph just as the show was beginning, and warm-tone light was starting to hit the bluffs, beaches, and water.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

China Camp Pier

January 13, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A decrepit pier extends into San Francisco Bay at China Camp, California

This was my first visit to China Camp, on the shores of the north San Francisco Bay, after several years of thinking about it. I had seen some other photographs from the place and I knew a bit of the history of the old Chinese Camp fishing village and that it had been protected by state park status, but I couldn’t actually point to it on a map. It turned out that a group of photographers was going to visit China Camp during a weekend of shooting around the Bay Area, and I ended up more or less linking up with them.

I arrived before the rest of the group and I began by scoping out a few things for later shots and then photographing a small island that is very close to this old village. Finishing with that subject, I headed down the hill to the cover when the old village buildings are located. This pier is one of the more striking sights in the area, being in a sort of picturesque state of disrepair that has left parts of it leaning at odd angles, further accented by the odd little utility line leading out toward the water. As soon as I arrived at the small beach by the building from which the pier extends, I knew that I wanted to photograph it in a way that included the little building and the pier stretching across the frame toward the horizon, and I was pretty certain that I wanted to render it in black and white. At almost this precise moment the clouds thinned a bit and a bit of soft sunlight shone on the scene, accentuating the shadows on the water – so I quickly went to work and made three exposures of the scene before the light went dull again.

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

Rat Rock Island, Winter Sky

January 8, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Clouds from a dissipating winter storm above Rat Island and the northern San Francisco Bay

For such a beautiful little island, this place certainly has a nasty name! I have intended to visit this place for a few years now, but had never quite gotten around to it – so I used a San Francisco photowalk devoted to “long exposure photography” as the impetus to finally make it. We had started much earlier in the morning in the Marin Headlands, photographing San Francisco Bay, and at that time a winter weather front was making its way through the area and producing a rather cloudy dawn. Leaving there, the group headed to the small state park where this scene is located. I arrived there before almost anyone else, so I headed to this location and had it to myself for a few minutes.

The previous evening some had been discussing the weather prospects, and I had pointed out that often the most interesting skies come on the heels of awful weather, and this moment serves as an example. An hour earlier and a few miles away, the overcast was thick and gray, but here the trailing edge of the storm was bringing layers of clouds that were thinning and allowing the early morning light through. But this quality of sky and light lasted only a short time, and less than an hour later these beautiful early morning clouds were largely gone.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: seascape

Rat Rock Island, Hills

Davenport Bluffs, Sunset

China Camp Pier

Rat Rock Island, Winter Sky

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