Weeds growing in brackish water of a slough near the Cosumnes River.
It is a photograph of weeds! In a slough! ;-)
During my late January visit to the Cosumnes River Wildlife Preserve, the day began with extremely thick “pea soup” tule fog. As the morning wore on it stuck around, though gradually began to lighten a bit. As this process continued I wandered along the railroad tracks beyond the visitor center and at one point I passed by a quiet and slightly muddy slough… where I noticed these interesting (and so far anonymous) plants growing in the water.
I was intrigued by the pattern produced by their stems and the complementary reflections in the water. I also noticed that if I looked more closely I could see the outlines of some underwater specimens of the same plant and that a few odd oak tree leaves were floating here and there on the surface of the still water.
Sparse trees grow in granite slabs above steep granite cliffs in Lower Yosemite Valley.
(Note: After receiving some advice from a helpful reader – which was much appreciated! – I now know that this feature has a name. It is called “the Rostrum,” and I have retitled the photograph accordingly.)
I’ve seen these tree-topped columns and the granite slabs beyond many times when I’ve taken Crane Flat Road into the Valley. On my recent visit to Yosemite, photographing these trees in both early and late light was on my agenda, and I got myself into position to shoot them on two or three occasions.
At the right times of day – and there are at least two when this can work – the light slants across the top of the granite slabs and ledges at the top of these cliffs and catches the trees with side or back light. Below these upper slopes the vertical fluted forms of the cliffs drop nearly vertically to the Merced River canyon below. The cliffs themselves are in what I might describe as lower Yosemite Valley – think of Crane Flat Road above Cascade Creek or the area well beyond the upper end of Wawona Tunnel. There is a lot of very interesting and imposing rock in this part of the Valley, though I think it may get overlooked a bit by comparison to the truly astonishing faces and domes and peaks of the Valley proper.
Since the light changes throughout the year, and especially because the point at which the sun sets moves north as the years moves from winter to summer, I want to come back and photograph this area again a bit later in the year when I think the potential for light later in the day might improve. From my point of view, the ideal conditions might combine “golden hour” side light with shadows that reduce the detail on the forest covered slopes beyond – and without the bright snow patches that appear here. Of course, a fresh snowfall here might also be interesting…
I got a bit of a laugh out of one thing that happened when I made this photograph, though it is similar to similar situations I’ve had in the past. It is not at all unusual for lots of tourists to stop when they see a photographer with a big tripod and large lens at a pull-out along the road. I assume they think that if the photographer with the Fancy Equipment is stopping that there must be something there worth photographing. But sometime the photographer is pointing the camera in direction that must only confuse them. On this occasion I was in a spot with a classic and stunning view of distant Bridalveil Fall, and I’ll bet that many of those stopping thought they might try to duplicate my “shot of the falls.” But as they stopped and looked they may have wondered about me if they noticed that my lens was aimed at some seemingly nondescript spot perhaps 30% to the right of the fall…
I made this photograph during midday hours after walking a ways up into the canyon from its mouth – the alternative to making the very long drive over the Grapevine Mountains from Amargosa Valley. (I have done the latter a few times, too.) While most Death Valley subjects tend to be appealing in the early morning or in the evening, many of the canyons can be at their best during the middle of the day, especially the very deep and narrow canyons like lower Titus Canyon. Here the canyon narrows down to the point that there is only room of a single gravel track, and twists and turns around rocky outcroppings. The light striking the upper canyon walls – out of the range of this photograph – reflects down into the canyon and produces soft, diffused illumination.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Morning winter fog clears from the oak forest and grassland of the Calero Hills, California.
This is a sort of scene that seems to me to be a prototypical California view. Almost anywhere you go west of the Sierra and away from either the redwoods or deserts, you won’t be too far from places like this that feature grassland, oak trees, and some sort of vertical relief in the landscape. This area happens to be a short drive from where I live. It is merely a local county park and not a place that most would regard as special. However, because it is so close, I have been able to spend a great deal of time here in all seasons, at all times of the day, and in all sorts of weather conditions. Eventually I found that there is an almost unending supply of potential photographic subjects even in this spot that would certainly not impress most people as being exceptional.
I made this photograph back near the beginning of 2010, and shortly after that a posted an early version here. That version was in a slightly wider format and it was in color. As part of my year-end review of all of my raw files from 2010, I saw this image again in its original form… and this time I saw it a bit differently, in black and white and with a more “traditional” 4:5 ratio format. Contrary to what I though originally, I now think that the narrower format does a more effective job of juxtaposing the stacked angles of close, middle and far ridges, and it also let me eliminate some stuff along the margins that now seems distracting to me.
To the extent that this version of the image works, I think it illustrates something that I’ve heard others say and which resonates with my own experience, namely that it is sometimes easier to “see” what is in a photograph when you get a bit more distance from the act of “capturing” it.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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