Tag Archives: shoreline

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

Seaweed and Sandstone, Weston Beach

July 28, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A twisted piece of seaweed tossed onto sandstone rocks at Weston Beach, Point Lobos State Reserve.

Bits of sea life-like this illustrate one of the great reasons to walk slowly and carefully along the shoreline with eyes wide open. I photographed this section of dried seaweed just as I found it, lying on this stratified bit of sandstone on Weston Beach at Point Lobos. It is hard to imagine how a plant that, I presume, might have been fairly straight underwater, ended up in such a wonderfully twisted shape and to sit on this bit of rock with its own shallow curve.

I was a bit surprised to find this and some similar nearby examples on this beach. I’m used to coming here in the high-wave months of winter, when storm surf can cast all sorts of interesting things far up on the beaches and beyond the usual high-water line. But at this time of year the surf is often a lot calmer, as it was on this day, and I don’t expect to see nearly as much “stuff” washed up.

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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Morning Light, Tioga Tarn

July 17, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light, shining over the shoulder of Mount Dana, strikes a shoreline meadow along one of the Tioga tarns, Yosemite National Park.

I’m pretty much completely unable to resist making photographs of trees back-lit by morning light, especially when they are in meadowy areas along the shorelines of sub-alpine or alpine lakes. The condition is even worse when the water reflects the backlit trees, and almost unbearable when the light also illuminates some of the shapes below the water’s surface. It is a personal weakness. I freely admit it! ;-)

I made this photograph early one morning, but not too early, in the general area of Tioga Pass. The high country on both sides of the pass contains quite a few small seasonal ponds filled by snow-melt water. Many are shallow and many, but not all, are partially to completely surrounded by meadow. Often small trees may grow in the meadow areas along the banks of the tarns, with the old explanation being that they are “gradually filling in the meadows,” though I’ve also heard that they find it harder to grow in these areas because of the higher water table. I made this photograph with a rather long lens. In some ways it might have been better to work closer to the trees and use a shorter lens, but here it was also a better idea to use the long lens to protect the area surrounding the tarn, an area that is perhaps just a bit too accessible to visitors and which needs a bit of additional care and protection. By the way, if you want to see green high country scenes like this one, you’ll have to go very soon this year! After a very dry winter, much of the water is already drying up in the high country and the meadows that would typically be at their height of green right about now are already turning brown quickly.

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

Winter Surf, Asilomar Beach, Twilight

December 24, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Winter Surf, Asilmar Beach, Twilight - Pacific Grove, California. — Winter Surf, Asilomar Beach, Twilight

Winter surf at twilight at Asilomar Beach, Pacific Grove, California.

I was in the Monterey Peninsula area for several days in mid-December for mostly non-photographic reasons, but I managed to get away and make some photographs on several occasions. On this evening I had just enough time to quickly head over to the Pacific Grove area at Asilomar Beach in the evening. I arrived a bit before sunset and quickly found a spot with several photographic possibilities.

I began by shooting along a the beach toward the setting sun, and including the figures of lots of people who were out strolling along this beach. I though that the silhouettes of the people were interesting, along with the colors of the late-day sky and their reflections on the water and the wet areas of the sand. After the sun dropped below the horizon I mostly stopped photographing people – my shutter speeds had to be too low to stop their motion – and I began to work with longer exposures that allowed the water to blur to a greater or lesser extent, while focusing more on the intense colors of the post-sunset period.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Small Tree, Shoreline Rocks

December 21, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A small tree grows in a shoreline rock garden along a Sierra Nevada lake in the back-country of Yosemite National Park.

I’m posting this one because a person who posted here a week or two ago on a similar photograph asked whether I had made any photographs that included a bit more of the surface of the lake and its reflections of the forest in the distance. In fact, I had one more, and this is it.

I made this photograph and the other one in soft light at the edge of the day when no direct sunlight was in the scene at all. While this can flatten the light a bit, it also tends to fill in that shadow areas and create a less harsh sort of light. In also contributed to the interesting reflected and diffused forms of the forest along the far bank of the lake, whose vertical forms cross the horizontal forms of underwater rocks along the bottom of the lake bed.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: shoreline

Seaweed and Sandstone, Weston Beach

Morning Light, Tioga Tarn

Winter Surf, Asilomar Beach, Twilight

Small Tree, Shoreline Rocks

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