Tag Archives: shoreline

Photographs: Germany

A Window in Heidelberg

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A Window in Heidelberg
A G Dan Mitchell print hanging in a home in Heidelberg, Germany

A Window in Heidelberg. Heidelberg, Germany. August 16, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A G Dan Mitchell print hanging in a home in Heidelberg, Germany

As a photograph, I do not claim this as one of my best. However, it is one that I like a lot. Along a small street in Heidelberg, between a larger street and a long hill with a famous walking path, there is a home with windows at street level. I understand that neighbors may know it, among other things, as home where flowers are often seen in the windows. In the evening, if the inside lights are on, a favorite photograph of mine may be visible on the way – a little bit of my Sierra Nevada world shared with people in a distant place.

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: Desert, Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Mono Lake, Sky and Mountains

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Mono Lake, Sky and Mountains
Mono Lake, shoreline, and mountains to the east.

Mono Lake, Sky and Mountains. Mono Lake, California. July 15, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Mono Lake, shoreline, and mountains to the east.

The landscape of the Mono Lake Basin offers tremendous diversity — everything from intimate scenes of tufas and other features, to grand landscapes stretching off far into the distance. It is even a place to photograph wildlife in the context of landscape. In the right conditions the water becomes a subtle and varied element of the landscape, too.

I recently visited here early on a summer morning. I was staying back up in the Yosemite Sierra, but I decided to drive down for one morning of “east side” photography, including the lake and then some areas further south and east. At first I wasn’t too excited by the “empty” blue sky, but when I saw it as a counterpoint to the textured blue of the lake’s water I thought it deserved a 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

Rocks, Wave, Horizon

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Rocks, Wave, Horizon
Shoreline rocks, an incoming wave, and the Pacific Ocean horizon on a gray morning

Rocks, Wave, Horizon. Coastal California. May 13, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Shoreline rocks, an incoming wave, and the Pacific Ocean horizon on a gray morning

I knew I wanted to photograph today, but the conditions in the Bay Area were perhaps less than inspiring, at least for the subjects I had initially thought to explore. It was a gray morning all up and down the coast and the high fog extended well inland, producing lots and lots of flat light. I stalled for a bit and then, after reading a weather forecast offering the hope of some breaks my late morning, I headed over the hills to the coast and began to work my way north from the Santa Cruz area. Some days the photographs just seem to appear almost of their own accord, but this was not going to be one of those days.

There are several ways to deal with this eventuality. One is, of course, to give up and go home — and, in truth, sometimes that is the most reasonable choice. There will always be another day with better conditions. A second option is to continue to look, holding out hope that something special will eventually happen. (I can tell plenty of stories of unpromising conditions that offered up astounding light surprises.) A third is to look for some completely different subject. For a moment today I thought about doing some urban photography. A fourth — and this may be the best in the long run — is to try to “see” the conditions as they are and find some way to photograph them, perhaps even going with the gray, so to speak. So that is what this photograph is — a very simple and quiet image that perhaps reflects the nature of this day.

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

Bluffs and Morning Fog

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Bluffs and Morning Fog
Coastal bluffs lead away into the fog along California’s rugged Pacific Ocean coast

Bluffs and Morning Fog. Big Sur Coast, California. May 1, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Coastal bluffs lead away into the fog along California’s rugged Pacific Ocean coast

I am still astonished by how widely variable the appearance of a single scene can be along this Big Sur coastline. On a winter day this area could be raked by monumentally powerful Pacific storms, raising winds and surf. On a quite summer evening it could be warm and peaceful with sunset light bathing the cliffs. On another summer evening everything could be socked in completely by thick fog.

On this spring morning the light coming over the ridges of the coastal mountains was still casting shadows along the shoreline, while the tops of the bluffs were in sunshine. Oddly, on a morning that began clear, fog was beginning to form down low, hugging the coast just above the water. Despite the bright morning sun, along these bluffs the principle color was blue — the blue shades of ocean water and the subtler blue of haze and fog and shaded rock, with the landscape and water eventually disappearing into the distance, muted by the fog.

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.