Tag Archives: seashore

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Wildlife

Elephant Seals in Surf

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Elephant Seals in Surf
Two young elephant seals sparring in the surf at Point Reyes National Seashore.

Elephant Seals in Surf. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two young elephant seals sparring in the surf at Point Reyes National Seashore.

This pair of young elephant seals was part of a larger group hanging out along the beaches inside the bay at Point Reyes National Seashore. The group was on a beach at the bottom of a steep hillside, so they were protected from human intrusion not only by law but also by terrain. I watched them for some time as they cavorted (or whatever it is they do) on the beach and in the shallow shoreline water.

While I can claim no expertise in elephant seal behavior, this pair appeared to be conducting a mild version of the often-violent sparring that goes on between the huge adult males. They position themselves face to face, then raise their heads with mouths agape and pointed toward the sky, sometimes pushing their necks into one another and occasionally biting.

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 and Amazon.

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

Pasture, Estero, and Drakes Bay

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Pasture, Estero, and Drakes Bay
Looking across pastureland and Drakes Estero toward Drakes Bay and the California coast

Pasture, Estero, and Drakes Bay. Point Reyes National Seashore, California. October 15, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Looking across pastureland and Drakes Estero toward Drakes Bay and the California coast

I have a confession to make regarding Point Reyes. Although it is, relatively speaking, “in my local neighborhood” and I’ve gone there a lot, I have yet to fully wrap my mind around the place to the extent that I feel that I have fully photographed it or fully understand its character. I do have some photographs of the place that I like quite a bit, but when I go there I often find it more difficult to photograph than places like the Sierra, the Big Sur coast, California’s deserts, and similar. I love photographing the ocean, but here the features of the coast are perhaps more subtle, tending more toward beaches and bluffs and bay than to dramatic and rocky coastline. There are hills, but many are rather short, tend to be covered almost completely in forest in many cases, and tend to lack rocky outcroppings. The light can be very interesting, but there is often a fine line between too much and too little sun.

To summarize, I’m still working to figure out my vision of the place. Our most recent visit, in the middle of October during the northern California wildfires, was provided no exceptions to the challenge. There was no fog and the sky was almost clear… except that wildfire smoke often tended to blanket the terrain, producing a sort of yellow quality to the light. Because it is October, most of the green of meadows is long gone, and instead open areas are a kind of muted brown. Yet, I still want to photograph the place, and I know I’ll eventually “get it.” We did spend some time looking for photographs in the park this time, and this lovely inlet from Drakes Estero caught my attention as we traveled out toward the location of the Point Reyes Lighthouse. After we stopped and I looked more closely, I found the old stock fence to be an interesting addition to the photograph.

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 and Amazon.
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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Bluff, Tidal Flats, Tomales Bay

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Bluff, Tidal Flats, Tomales Bay
Evening along the shoreline of Tomales Bay

Bluff, Tidal Flats, Tomales Bay. Near Point Reyes National Seashore, California. October 15, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening along the shoreline of Tomales Bay

This is another photograph from our very recent visit to areas of California just north of San Francisco. If you follow the news, that description perhaps calls to mind the recent (and current, as I write this) major wildfires burning in California, including the disastrous fire in the Santa Rosa area that killed dozens of people and destroyed thousands of homes and other structures. In fact, we were very close to that area on this trip. We might not have gone at all, except that one of the reasons for going there was to participate in a wedding — and since the wedding went on despite the first, we went. We had planned a few days after that for photography, and we decided to stick to that plan, too.

The effects of the fires were obvious in many ways: signs in shops and elsewhere about people needing a place to stay or raising funds for fire relief, the traffic heading to the coast to try to find relief from the smoke, and the constant presence of that smoke in the air. We ended up doing much less photography than we usually would, but on one day we did manage to make a few photographs. We had driven north up that coast a ways, turning around just north of Jenner where the smoke became quite severe, and we were returning to the area around Point Reyes National Seashore. We arrived alongside upper Tomales Bay, which separates Point Reyes from the rest of California, not long before sunset. Here the smoke thinned a bit, mostly just producing some atmospheric haze, and the scene was quiet and still in the early evening 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 and Amazon.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Low Tide, Fog, Drakes Estero

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Low Tide, Fog, Drakes Estero
Thinning fog above Drakes Estero at low tide

Low Tide, Fog, Drakes Estero. Point Reyes National Seashore, California. July 23, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Thinning fog above Drakes Estero at low tide

I spend a mid-July day hiking — at least once I had completed my obligatory bakery stop at Point Reyes Station — a route at Point Reyes National Seashore that I’ve had my eyes on for some time. It is a trail that starts in the upper recesses of Drakes Estero and, if you turn at the right junctions, finally goes all the way to headlands above Drakes Bay. I had, in fact, started this hike at least once in the past, but always a bit spontaneously and too late in the day, and each time I had turned back before completing it. This time I planned more carefully, and I was on the trail in plenty of time to complete the round trip.

This is a spare landscape, mostly without the vertical scale of places like the Sierra or even of the Big Sur coastline. Bare bluffs run along the peninsula that runs out toward the actual “point,” and the view extends more in the horizontal than the vertical direction. But what it lacks in vertical relief, this landscape can make up for as a canvas on which effects of atmosphere and light may play. My plan was to begin my hike at about the time the morning fog broke up, and to then follow the fog/sun line as in moved toward the coast. I was not entirely successful (it never did clear at the coast) but I timed it just about right for the start of the walk. This photograph comes from that early section of the route, when the clear sky above the dissipating clouds reflected its blue color onto the waters of the estero.

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 and Amazon.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.