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“We interrupt our regular programming…”

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… for photographs from the 2010 Amgen Tour of California.

I know that at least a few visitors to this site might wonder where the natural and urban landscapes and related photographs that I normally post every day have gone, and what the heck is going on with all the bicycle racing photographs. A few thoughts about this follow:

I’ll continue to post photographs from the Tour during while the tour is underway. It ends this coming weekend in Southern California. (No, I won’t be there, but I still have a good number of photographs from northern California to post.)

If you are looking for landscape, urban landscape, nature and other more typical subjects at this web site, you can still find these subjects. Today there are still a few lower down on the home page, and you can click the navigation buttons at the bottom of the page to find such photographs that were posted recently. In addition you can find them using the text search box or by visiting the gallery via the link in the sidebar. And once the Tour ends, even though I’ll still have more cycling photographs to share, the main subjects at this blog will once again be those that visitors may be more familiar with.

Every time I photograph the Tour I am reminded that sports and landscape and nature photography are not completely separate and independent worlds. The day before I photographed the first stage of the Tour I went to the California coast and photographed pelicans and other shorebirds in flight. I can hardly imagine a better way to tune up my vision and technique for tracking and photographing moving cyclists! And, though I wasn’t at the Tour on that day, the peloton passed by the very spots where I photographed those pelicans just a couple days later. As I watched the broadcast coverage of the Tour that afternoon, I was surprised but very pleased to see that that the cameras in the peloton turned away from the riders… and toward this very landscape that I shoot so often.

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

Big Sur Coastline Near Soberanes Canyon

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Big Sur Coastline Near Soberanes Canyon
Big Sur Coastline Near Soberanes Canyon

Big Sur Coastline Near Soberanes Canyon. Big Sur, California. May 1, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of rugged Big Sur coastline rocks and surf near Soberanes Canyon, Garrapata State Park, California.

One more rugged shoreline photograph from my May 1 visit to the Big Sur coastline. This area is within the confines of Garrapata State Park, and very close to Soberanes Canyon. (Those who know the Soberanes Canyon trail may recognize the old barn seen faintly through the foggy haze near the upper right corner of the frame.)

I love to follow the ridgelines of these coastal mountains all the way down to the surf. Them begin high up on the steep but rounded slopes and gradually become sharper as they descend toward the ocean, being cut deeply by the streams in the bottoms of their canyons. Just above the ocean the canyons are often quite steep, though there can be a bluff right above the drop-off to the water, too. Then, at the very lowest ends of these ridges, the ocean has its effect and the softer dirt and gravel that gives them their folded forms higher up is stripped away, leaving the broken and rugged underlying rocks and they disappear into the surf.

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.

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Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM at 400mm
ISO 200, f/16, 1/160 second

keywords: big, sur, coast, coastline, soberanes, canyon, creek, black and white, monochrome, rugged, rough, rock, surf, wave, foam, garrapata, state, park, california, usa, north america, bird, gull, barn, highway, cliff, bluff, island, seascape, sea, ocean, pacific, shore, shoreline, landscape, nature, scenic, travel, monterey, carmel, stock

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

Rugged Coastline, Big Sur

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Rugged Coastline, Big Sur
Rugged Coastline, Big Sur

Rugged Coastline, Big Sur. Garrapata State Park, California. May 1, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of rough surf and rugged coastal rocks and cliffs along the Big Sur Coastline of California at Garrapata State Park.

This is, to my mind, an astonishingly rugged and wild bit of coastline at Garrapata State Park, south of Carmel, California in the northern section of the Big Sur coastline. I made the photograph from the edge of a bluff above the rocky coast, at a spot where I could shoot south along the shoreline and toward a section of coastline where the contour headed back towards the west. While it was a clear morning with only a bit of fog along the tops of the nearby hills, the surf was big enough to fill the air with a thin mist which created the atmospheric recession effect in this photograph.

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM at 360mm
ISO 100, f/16, 1/80 second

keywords: garrapata, state, beach, park, big, sur, rock, island, stack, cliff, outcropping, pacific, ocean, sea, shore, coast, shoreline, rugged, crashing, rough, surf, wave, foam, bird, atmospheric, recession, morning, light, black and white, monochrome, highway, one, seascape, landscape, nature, travel, scenic, stock

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

Rocky Creek Bridge, Big Sur

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Rocky Creek Bridge, Big Sur
Rocky Creek Bridge, Big Sur

Rocky Creek Bridge, Big Sur. Garrapata State Park, California. May 1, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A natural bridge in front of manmade Rocky Creek Bridge along the Big Sur Coastline, California.

This scene is becoming a sort of personal icon in my photography of the California coastline. I have made a couple black and white photographs of the location that are among my very favorite photographs, but I’ve been meaning to work on a color photograph of this spot. There are at least three general conditions in which this spot gets what I regard as interesting light: fairly early morning when the light slants down toward the ocean from over the coastal Big Sur hills, late afternoon in warm light, and during various types of cloud and fog conditions. This version is from the first of these – photographed relatively early in the day when portions of the scene are backlit but some light hits parts of the scene directly after the sun rises above the tall mountains to the east.

Believe it or not, I still don’t think I’ve fully worked this scene – and I have several other ideas of how I would like to shoot it when the conditions are just right.

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM at 360mm
ISO 200, f/11, 1/250 second

keywords: natural, manmade, bridge, rocky, creek, pacific, ocean, sea, shore, shoreline, coast, highway, 1, one, rock, island, surf, wave, arch, beach, spring, morning, light, bird, gull, cliff, hill, steep, ridge, monterey, carmel, landscape, seascape, nature, scenic, travel, road, drive, stock