Tag Archives: sky

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Turks Head, Green River

April 13, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The green river curves around Turks Head and through deep canyons in hazy evening light, Canyonlands National Park, Utah.

I made several photographs Canyonlands National Park’s Green River Overlook on this beautiful early April evening. The upper portion of this area of the park is a high, flat area at about 6000′ of elevation that tends to drop off steeply, especially on the east, south, and west sides which lead to the canyons of the Colorado and Green Rivers just above their confluence. Below this upper plateau there is a second plateau at the level of the White Rim about 1000′ lower, with yet another drop-off into the bottoms of the river canyons and their tributaries.

This photograph is looking roughly southwest into the canyon of the Green River, which is barely visible between the foreground White Rim area and the solitary butte of “Turks Head” just beyond. (At least I hope it is Turks Head! That looks to be the only feature in this area that would fit that description, but I’m now to this geography.) At this early evening time the light was slanting nearly horizontally across the scene from the right and hitting a few of the west-facing slopes and glancing along the top of the White Rim. Haze filled the air, softening the light, muting the colors of the scene, and accentuating the grand scale of this landscape.

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: Architecture, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Street Light, Yellow Walls

April 9, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A street light attached to the exterior of dilapidated industrial buildings at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.

Given the number of times I have ended up photographing this building at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard near Vallejo, California, you might think that I’d almost be done with it by now. Apparently not. I was back at Mare Island in early March to do some photography with my friends from The Nocturnes (and to drag along photographer and friend David Hoffman). After shooting a newly-accessible area near the waterfront and not far from the Mare Island Museum, our wanderings took us past this building, also sometimes known as the UFO building. (I’ll leave the source of that name a mystery for now…)

These old buildings were part of a very active ship building facility until the mid-1990s when the area was decommissioned. Today many of the old buildings still stand, some kept maintained in their historical state and others now the homes of various industries. As far as I can tell, this weathered building is not occupied, and its exterior is a marvel of peeling paint, wild textures, boarded up windows, external electrical conduits, and more.

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

Coal Chute Point and The Pit

April 2, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Coal Chute Point, the Pit, and the rugged shoreline of Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

(Shortly after posting this, another photographer wrote to suggest that I might consider renaming the image to “Point and Chute.” ;-)

For all the years – decades, actually, and more than a few – that I’ve been visiting Point Lobos, there are still places that I have not gotten around to visiting within the boundaries of the park. Among them are some headlands not far from Whalers Cove that I’ve looked at for a long time… and then always headed off to some other part of the reserve without visiting them. Earlier this week I visited Point Lobos with no particular goal in mind aside from making some photographs, and I somehow finally ended up in this picturesque area that offers some quite different views from those found in the areas that more directly face out into the Pacific. (While it is, indeed, picturesque… the place names are not. Coal Chute Point? The Pit?)

The light in this photograph is somewhat subdued, at least in comparison to some of the photographs you might see of such a place, typically shot in the evening when the sky is at its most colorful. (Yes, I’ve certainly made my share of those photographs at Point Lobos, too!) But this light had a different sort of appeal, and it continuously changed during my half day there. When I arrived some fog was just clearing near the coast. It was a strange pattern – fog way inlands that looked more like the typical winter valley tule fog than the summer coastal fog. In fact, as is frequently the case in winter, it was clear at the coast. But somewhat surprisingly there was a regular old fog bank lurking a ways off the shoreline – and later in the day it moved in on the coast. Along with this there were high, thin clouds from a weather front that was passing well to the north. These conditions can still provide directional light but light which is softer and can fill in the shadows a bit – making it possible to shoot in places and at times of the day when the light might otherwise be too harsh. For this photograph I decided to “go wide,” and shoot with a 24mm focal length of a full frame DSLR to accentuate the distance between the foreground beach and the distant horizon and to include the full width of the curving wave as it broke on the beach.

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

Fog, Surf, and Rocks

April 1, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Midday sun glows through coastal fog bank above offshore rocks and surf, Point Lobos State Reserve.

I made a new photograph in the “barely there” series today at Point Lobos. It was a surprisingly good photography day at Point Lobos. I say this because when I started out this morning things did not look very promising at all. At my home, it was cloudy and gray – but since at least one weather forecast mentioned sun down in the Monterey Peninsula area, I decided to give it a try. As I drove south it got worse – I ended up in very thick fog during the first 30 minutes or so of my drive. However, recalling that when there is inland fog this time of year there is often clearing at the coast, I decided to keep going. A few miles from Monterey the skies began to clear, leaving some pockets of fog here and there with high thin clouds above. Now things were looking up! High, thin clouds can provide excellent conditions for many kinds of landscape shooting, since these conditions soften that shadows and take the harsh edge off of the light.

Arriving at Point Lobos I could see there was fog a good distance off shore, but beautiful light was shining through the forest along the entrance road. I headed down to Whalers Cove and went for a hike around the far side of the cove, and ended up spending the better part of three hours poking around in this area. By the time I got back to my car it was lunch time, and I decided to at least head out to the west-facing shoreline to look around before leaving. When I got there, the offshore fog bank had moved in and was starting to flow across the shoreline. A bit further south I could see the backlit fog lit brilliantly by the sun and almost obscuring the rocks and islands in the Bird Island area. In fact, by the time I got my camera on the tripod, these islands had completely disappeared. I waited a bit, and their shapes began to again barely emerge from the fog.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sky

Turks Head, Green River

Street Light, Yellow Walls

Coal Chute Point and The Pit

Fog, Surf, and Rocks

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