Tag Archives: seascape

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

Clearing Coastal Fog

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Clearing Coastal Fog
Morning coastal fog begins to break up over the Pacific Ocean off the California coast.

Clearing Coastal Fog. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Morning coastal fog begins to break up over the Pacific Ocean off the California coast.

Conditions were both odd… and very normal for June on this recent visit to the Pacific coastline between Santa Cruz and San Francisco. The odd? In some spots the drizzle was heavy enough to almost count as rain, something quite unusual in these parts of California in June. The usual? We have a term for it here: “June Gloom,” when the influence of cooler ocean waters creates a lot of coastal fog, often sufficient to spread inland throughout the Bay Area.

The three things that will usually bring me to the coast to photograph are fog, a storm, and/or high surf. This was obviously a foggy day, and my general strategy is to photograph in the moody, murky fog until it begins to clear. At that point I chase the fog line, where all kinds of wonderful things happen with light and color. The blue of the sky intensifies the color of the water, and the contrasts grow between shaded ocean and the places where it is either still in fog or catching the first sun.

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

A Small Wave

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A Small Wave
On a day of quiet seas, a small wave crosses a kelp bed along the California coast.

A Small Wave. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

On a day of quiet seas, a small wave crosses a kelp bed along the California coast.

My recent photographs from Point Lobos have mostly used the grand landscape as the subject, focusing on central subjects set in expansive surroundings. If you are familiar with those locations you might have been able to identify the specific places where I photographed, and you might have recognized the actual subjects of the images. This is not one of those photographs.

This photograph could be from any of an uncounted number of places along the coast of California — or any other coastal zone for that matter. I think this photograph can work in at least two ways. On one level it is a “capture” of a real thing that happens in these places: we see the submerged sand and kelp through clear water, while the more turbulent water that follows the little wave reflects more sky color. But I like the fact that it also woks as an abstraction of shape, color, and form.

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

Rocky Peninsula, Fog

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Rocky Peninsula, Fog
A rocky peninsula, the home of a cormorant rookery, exends into the fog and surf, Point Lobos State Reserve.

Rocky Peninsula, Fog. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A rocky peninsula, the home of a cormorant rookery, exends into the fog and surf, Point Lobos State Reserve.

This rocky peninsula is a kind of “land’s end” feature at Point Lobos. It extends out into the ocean where the west and north shores meet, and it is often a place to observe big surf. Even on this relatively quiet day the waves were washing over the lower slopes of the feature. If you look closely you can spot scores of cormorants on the center and right sides — this is a cormorant rookery, and most of the birds are juveniles waiting for the next feeding from their parents.

Conditions on this morning were my favorite at this location — drifting fog thick enough to obscure distant subjects but shallow enough to sometimes produce some translucent and slightly directional light. I paused at this spot and remained for some time as the fog increased and decreased. Ironically, after all of that waiting, the first photograph I made turned out to have the most interesting light!

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.

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

Bluffs and Mist, Morning Light

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Bluffs and Mist, Morning Light
Coastal bluffs, morning fog and mist along the Big Sur coast.

Bluffs and Mist, Morning Light. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Coastal bluffs, morning fog and mist along the Big Sur coast.

Photographing along the Big Sur Coast in the early morning presents some challenges and some special opportunities. The challenge is straightforward — in almost all locations there are mountains to your east that block the morning light. This means that you won’t see the earliest eastern sunrise sky at all, and that the landscape is frequently all or partly in shadow. But one of the opportunities comes from the same source — light arriving along the coast just as the sun clears these obstructions often passes through narrow clefts and valleys, and when the air is full of fog and mist this can create a plethora of light beams.

Those beams are what I saw in this scene. The process of finding the composition here is one that I use a lot. I stopped at a familiar location that presents a very large and panoramic landscape featuring a famous icon. My first instinct was to photograph anything but that icon, so I framed a composition that took in a section of coast and surf running away from me to the south. After I made a few exposures of that subject, each of which tried to capture a different state of the surf, I became interested in the bluff at the far end of the scene. So I went with a very long focal length and honed in on this small part of the larger landscape, focusing on the beautiful shaft of light between the bluffs that lit up the fog and spray and highlighted sections of the surf.

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 | 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.