Tag Archives: shoreline

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Shoreline, Abandoned Dock, Morning

June 14, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An abandoned dock stands along the shoreline of San Francisco Bay in morning light

Things have been very busy recently, limiting my time to go out and shoot. For some time I’ve been looking forward to another of my periodic “personal photo walks” in San Francisco, and I finally had the chance today. My routine is to get up very early and catch a Caltrain to the City, arriving there no later than 7:00 AM. This is a bit before the crowds arrive, and early enough that there is still a lot of good light around. The good light is especially likely long the San Francisco Bay waterfront, where it shine toward the City from across the bay, often through mist or fog and always reflecting on the water.

This time I explored around the fringes of the Mission Bay area. This was formerly a pretty run down location, with lots of empty lots and some abandoned structures. However, recent urban development has come, and many of the formerly empty areas are now construction sites or the sites of very new and recently occupied buildings. I walked past these and looped over towards the waterfront, where some areas are surprisingly “unimproved,” at least so far. Here I found the remnants of several old piers that have been left to decay and gradually tumble into the bay. In this photograph I shot straight into the morning sun, silhouetting the rotting wood, and composing the scene to include a bit of a working pier to the left and a couple of tankers anchored out in the bay beneath the thinning fog bank.

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: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

Tugboat, Dawn, San Francisco Bay

March 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A tugboat traverses San Francisco Bay in foggy dawn light

As I often do when heading north across the Golden Gate Bridge for early morning photography, I stopped to photograph the bridge, the bay, and the City as the day began. Arriving there perhaps almost a half hour before sunrise, we drive up a ways into the hills of the Marin Headlands and walked to a popular overlook to see—and photograph—whatever the rising sun might bring.

I’m tempted to write that “it was an unusual morning,” but after photographing here many, many times I’m catching on that there is perhaps no such thing as a “typical” morning on the bay. The diversity of light and atmosphere and weather and subject is unending. On this morning there was fog, but it wasn’t too thick and, perhaps surprisingly, was mostly not at the Golden Gate itself, but over parts of San Francisco and the inner bay. The water was visible below and the sky above, but that sky was partially obscured by the patterns of high clouds from a passing weather front. All of these clouds made things rather gray and murky for a time, though as the sun rose behind the fog bank far to the east, a subtly rose-colored glow briefly colored the water of the bay. Using a very long lens I focused on the wake of a tugboat beginning its trip towards and beyond the entrance to the bay, with a bit of the San Francisco shoreline, the western span of the Bay Bridge, and the reflection of a brighter portion of the bay near Oakland beyond.

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

Kelp and Stone

February 27, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

I met a group of photographer friends at Point Lobos on this mid-February day, where we spent the entire morning photographing before taking a midday break, followed by a quick visit to another location a bit further down the Pacific Coast Highway, and then a return to Point Lobos in the early evening. Perhaps to no one’s surprise, we started shooting near Weston Beach – but perhaps to everyone’s surprise, we were still shooting there when lunchtime rolled around! Fortunately, the light was somewhat cooperative, with some high clouds muting the sun that would otherwise have been too intense by that time of day.

We did not limit ourselves entirely to Weston Beach, and we wandered a bit north and south along bluff and rocks at times, photographing the huge winter surf. Eventually I ended up back at the “beach” (which seems not very beach-like at all, being mostly layered rock and big gravelly rocks) where I always like to look around slowly for interesting arrangements of whatever the sea throws up here. In one spot I found a pair of marble-round rocks, one pink and the other deep blue. Here I found a beautifully twisted and curved bit of kelp sitting on top of deeply patterned rocks not far from the edge of the water. In fact, it was so close to the water’s edge that I was only able to make a couple of exposures before a wave came far enough up on the beach to wash this kelp back out into the sea.

Leave a comment or question using the form. (Click the title to see the full article and to comment if you are viewing it on the home page.)

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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

Colorful Pebbles, Layered Sandstone

February 25, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two colorful pebbles rest on layered shoreline sandstone, Point Reyes Reserve

As I mentioned in an earlier post, when I visit Weston Beach at Point Lobos I often spend some time wandering around near the edge of the water, looking for interesting bits and pieces of “stuff” washed up by the winter surf. The stuff can range from small stones to kelp. Many of the stones are, not surprisingly, well-rounded from being rolled around in the surf. Occasionally a very colorful stone will show up… but here I got lucky and found these two, one deep blue and the other an intense pink-burgundy, sitting side by side in an indentation in the textured and layered shoreline sandstone.

It takes a bit of luck–and some observation–to find such things, but that isn’t quite enough. The light has to be right, too, and that isn’t always a sure thing here. It can be foggy, though that wasn’t the concern on this mid-February winter day. Since we arrived well into the morning hours, it was quite possible that as the sky cleared we would find the light far too harsh. However, luck was with us, and a high, thin layer of clouds moved in and muted the intensity of the light. I framed up this little composition and just waited for subtle changes in the light that would provide a soft shadow that was filled in with soft light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: shoreline

Shoreline, Abandoned Dock, Morning

Tugboat, Dawn, San Francisco Bay

Kelp and Stone

Colorful Pebbles, Layered Sandstone

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