Tag Archives: silhouette

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Ridges and Haze

January 28, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning haze and receding ridges above Death Valley.

There is “stuff” to photograph virtually anywhere you go in Death Valley – from the popular, iconic locations to the furthest back-country areas to nondescript turn-outs along whatever road you happen to be on. One of my goals on this January 2012 trip was to shoot some less-obvious locations. While the image is perhaps not “less obvious,” the location is probably not anything you are going to find in your park guidebook.

Early one morning I was out and about, at least partly thinking about where not to shoot – not the obvious places that first come to mind on a Death Valley morning. (I have nothing at all against photographing those places, too, especially when the conditions are just right.) I ended up more or less randomly heading up a road into some mountains, but without a specific goal in mind. I was simply driving along and watching for the “right” conduction of form and light and color. Several times I thought I saw something, but I didn’t stop, instead just making a quick mental note that I might want to come back to these spots and shoot them. (I didn’t on this trip, but I have them filed away for a future visit.) I finally arrived at a junction where the light was good, got out, set up camera and tripod, and set about looking for subjects.

Sometimes I have a pretty good idea of what I’m looking for, but it might surprise some people that I occasionally – perhaps more than you might think – have no specific photographic objective in mind when I get out the gear and begin my “hunt.” I like to joke that I could find myself almost anywhere with a camera and tripod and eventually find something to shoot within 50 feet of my location. (Occasionally, it might even be a good photograph… :-) While I most certainly do like certain locations, in many cases it isn’t so much about the specific place as it is about hunting for and discovering the visual opportunities presented by whatever place I’m in.

So, I started looking around. And I started making photographs. I photographed a nearby hill that caught some “first light” from the east, with more distant hills in the background. I photographed a long view of a haze-filled valley scene. I pointed my camera up a gully filled with rocks and desert plants. I make a picture of a non-description ridge top pinnacle with interesting clouds behind it. And I put the longest lens I had on the camera and shot almost into the sun to photograph this amazing sequence of stacked ridges high along the spine of a nearby mountain range.

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Photographs: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: People, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

America’s Pastime

January 2, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Baseball fans along the outer walkways of San Francisco Giants’ AT&T Park, with scoreboard, commercial messages, and twilight sky.

This photograph comes from a couple of years ago, and is one that I “found” again recently during a scan though a half dozen or so years worth of old files. I tend to be rather cautious about deleting old files, but I finally decided that some of the older files really not worth keeping – and the side benefit of cleaning out some of the photographic cobwebs is that I often rediscover photographs that I had forgotten.

We go to a few San Francisco Giants games every season. While I like the baseball, other things also draw my attention. In addition to the garlic fries and beer (!), AT&T Park also provides a lot of interesting photographic opportunities. At some point during every game I tend to just wander around the facility and see what might make an interesting photograph. Most often I use the elevated vantage points around the park to photograph San Francisco and the Bay, but sometimes I also photograph subjects within the stadium, too.

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

Granite Ridge and Trees

December 9, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A backlit granite ridge above the Tuolumne River is topped by trees.

I think that this is probably going to be the final riff on the subject of this particular ridge, the subject of several photographs I have posted in recent weeks. As I probably wrote at least once before… I climbed up from our camp onto the top of a small dome-like granite whaleback that gave me an open view in almost all directions and a high point from which to look over a good section of the Tuolumne River as it passes through a section of the Yosemite back-country. I arrived at this spot in the very late afternoon and then stayed there for perhaps two hours as the light gradually shifted from that of afternoon to sunset and then twilight.

This photograph was made before the golden hour, though I think that a bit of added warmth is already beginning to appear in the color of the light. The sun was coming from above the distant ridge seen faintly through the haze above the valley of the Tuolumne, and it was periodically blocked by some high clouds. While the clouds can “blah-ify” the light pretty effectively, when they are not completely covering the sky they can cast interesting and temporary light across the landscape as they move past. For a moment the light came brightly through the clouds and back-lit these beautiful trees that were growing on the granite surface of this dome.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: silhouette

Ridges and Haze

America’s Pastime

Winter Surf, Asilomar Beach, Twilight

Granite Ridge and Trees

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