Yosemite Valley, New Snow, Morning - Classic winter view of snow-covered Yosemite Valley scene photographed from Wawona Tunnel View after a late-winter storm.
It has been a bit of a tradition to post a photograph of Yosemite Valley in snow on Christmas Day – it seems like the Sierra way to send seasons greetings! I hope that you and yours are having a wonderful holiday!
(The photograph was made on the morning after a late-winter snow storm in The Valley back in 2006.)
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
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.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Post-sunset light over the winter surf of Monterey Bay, California.
I’ve had some opportunities to photograph in the Monterey and Big Sur area this week. For the most part, it has been a bit tricky as the light has been less than cooperative. I was out and about early on this day but ended up spending a couple hours looking for photographs… and never found one! (I did find some very interesting locations that I had to previously visited, however, and I think I’ll be heading back to photograph them in the future when I have better light.)
In the evening I thought that I might just head over to the coast line along Pacific Grove. Initially I stopped to photograph along a beach near Asilomar, where people were walking toward the sunset, the surf was impressive, and the shoreline sand reflected the colors of the sky. Then I turned to my right and thought that I might try another minimalist seascape, this time by waiting until the sun had set and the light diminished to the point that I could make some relatively long exposures. I anchored the scene with the bit or rock at the lower left corner and then tried to time my long exposures for moments when the rocks would be all or partially uncovered. By the time I finished shooting it was almost too dark to see my camera!
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
The moon, in full lunar eclipse, passes behind the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.
This is the second of two photographs of this week’s full lunar eclipse that I will share. The earlier one was a horizontal format version of roughly the same subject. Here the fully eclipsed setting moon passed behind the upper portion of the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, as seen from the San Francisco Bay shoreline in the Crissy Field area. There was just a bit of pre-dawn light in the sky at this point, and within a few minutes of making this photograph the combination of increasing ambient light, the generally hazy atmosphere, and the moon dropping into high, off-shore clouds brought the show to a fairly quick conclusion.
I was stunned by the number of other photographers out at this very early hour, even considering that it was within the city of San Francisco. I had originally tried Treasure Island, in the bay between San Francisco and Oakland. There were quite a few photographers lined up there at 5:00 a.m., but I did not like the potential positioning of the moon relative to likely foreground features near the horizon, so I didn’t stick around. Instead, I made a guess based on my knowledge of the area that there was a good chance that the moon might line up with the Golden Gate Bridge from vantage points in the Fort Mason, Crissy Field, and Fort Point areas. I drove over there quickly and was surprised to find the parking lots were nearly full and tripod-laden photographers walking about or already set up. I grabbed the first decent parking space, loaded up my gear, and started walking west, figuring that I could get to the likely spot on foot quite quickly.
A second surprise was that the ideal location, which wasn’t hard to find at all, was far less crowded than the areas closer to the parking lot. I was even able to find a spot or two where I could set up apart from other photographers and wait – for only a few moments by this time – for the moon to intersect with the bridge.
Another view of this subject in landscape orientation is posted here.
An interesting side note: Photographer Florian Kainz later shared his eclipse shot with me and asked if I might be the photographer standing in front of the bridge. Yes. That’s me! With Florian’s permission I have included a small version of his photo here – follow the links back to see his full-sized post at Flickr. He has given me permission to share his photograph here. Thanks, Florian!
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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