Tag Archives: sky

Pier, San Francisco Bay, Morning

June 30, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

An old pier along the Embarcadero, San Francisco Bay, with structures of the Port of Oakland, California across the water.

I wonder how long it will take for me to feel that I have exhausted the possibilities of this walk along San Francisco’s Embarcadero? Here is (yet another!) morning photograph made it this area, once again with what is perhaps my favorite light in this location – the early morning glow of backlit fog/haze over the waters of the Bay.

I made this photograph on a very calm summer morning when there waters of the Bay were almost completely smooth, at least until a bit of boat traffic began to come by and a breeze came up. Interjecting itself into the left side of the frame is one of the old piers along this section of the waterfront. In the far distance, all the way on the other side of the bay and muted by the morning haze, are giant cranes used at the Port of Oakland.

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.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Visual Puzzle with Tree

June 15, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A tree with early spring greenery against a backdrop of the reflecting windows of downtown San Francisco buildings.

On a mid-April walk though portions of downtown San Francisco to make photographs, while passing through the financial district I was these branches with new spring leaves juxtaposed with a conjunction of building angles, reflected and distorted light, and colors that created a wild abstraction.

The urban environment often holds visual attractions that are not always immediately scene and which sometimes require one to look past the more obvious grit and turmoil. (Those, too, can be a photographic subject… but not this time.) In downtown concrete canyons with glass covered buildings, there is a constantly varying world of wild distortions and conjunctions and perspectives. If you think about it, very little of what you think you see in this photograph is really “there.” The thing the fills the largest portion of the frame is a crazily distorted reflection of other building and sky, fractured and bent by the distortions from the glass – in essence you don’t really see this building at all!

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

Trees and Evening Sky

June 10, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Trees silhouetted against cloud-filled evening sky, Yosemite National Park.

The last time I posted a photograph of more or less this scene, the colors were so bright that you almost needed sunglasses! The photograph was made on an evening that ultimately turned into one of the most astonishingly colorful ones I have experienced in the Sierra – and I have experienced a few! Although that evening began with what most might regard as extraordinarily unpromising light – murky haze and overcast – I had an idea that these might be just the conditions in which the sun drops below the edge of the clouds far to the west just before sunset and then lights the clouds from beneath, a situation that can suddenly turn the sky into a psychedelic kaleidoscope of colors.

Eventually that is just what happened. But this photograph was made just before that show began, or perhaps during the very first stages of it when it was not at all certain what might develop. There were high, thin clouds in the sky to the west, and they began to glow a bit with evening backlight, so I lined up this little group of trees on the granite slabs and photographed them in silhouette against the sky. A few minutes later… it was not going to be time to be making black and white photographs!

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Sports

Sail Boat, San Francisco Bay

June 9, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A sailboat in morning light on the San Francisco Bay, San Francisco, California.

From time to time I take the train to San Francisco very early in the morning and then photograph while walking around the City. I often start by walking towards the Embarcadero waterfront, especially on sunny mornings when the haze over the bay is beautifully backlit, sometime so much that the glow obscures the East Bay cities and even the hills beyond. This was one of those mornings.

I had begun by photographing a bridge and then a construction site in the Mission Bay area, but I then headed back towards AT&T park, passing in on the walkway that travels along the waterfront. As I passed this area I had an idea that the atmosphere might be just about right, but I also realized that much of the foreground included subjects that I didn’t want in the frame. I was just in the process of switching to a longer lens – so that I could limit my field of view to an areas between the obstructions – when I saw this sail boat begin to approach from the right. I quickly finished the lens switch and moved to a spot that isolated this section of the bay from any other distracting elements, and almost immediately the boat passed across it. I had only a few seconds to work handheld before the boat passed closer to stuff I didn’t’ want in the frame and before a small motorboat accompanying it caught up.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sky

Pier, San Francisco Bay, Morning

Visual Puzzle with Tree

Sail Boat, San Francisco Bay

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