Tag Archives: sky

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Textures, Photographs: Yosemite

Sky and Ice

July 1, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Shoreline water reflects evening sky and clouds along the edge of melting winter ice patterns on an alpine lake in Yosemite National Park, California.

This morning I am back from several days of photographing on either side of the Sierra Nevada crest in the Mono Lake, Tioga Pass, and Tuolumne Meadows area. It is a beautiful early season in the Sierra – the wet and long-lasting winter produced a good snow pack (a substantial portion of which is still there if you go high enough) and now there is water everywhere.

After a mid-afternoon dinner, we headed up a short but steep and muddy trail through newly-emerging plants to reach a broad, snow-covered saddle. From this vantage point we were surprised to see that the valley below was still snow-covered, and that this large lake was almost fully covered by ice, with alternating patterns of thicker ice and melt-water pools. After descending to the lake, I climbed partway up the slope at one end to get a better angle on the ice and the reflected blue light from the sky. This photograph shows evening sky and clouds reflecting in the bit of open water close the shoreline.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Cloud Forms #2 – June 23, 2010

June 28, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening cloud forms above the Pacific Ocean coastline near Davenport, California.

This is the second of a pair of abstract images of evening clouds that I photographed earlier this week along the California coastline north of Davenport. The photographs were shot with fairly long focal lengths and then converted to black and white in post, where additional modifications to the original images were also made.

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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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Cloud Forms #1 – June 23, 2010

June 27, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening cloud forms above the Pacific Ocean coastline near Davenport, California.

This is the first of a pair of abstract images of evening clouds that I photographed earlier this week along the California coastline north of Davenport.

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

Summer Evening, Scott Creek Beach

June 24, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Fog rolls in on a summer evening at Scott Creek Beach, on the Pacific Ocean coastline near Davenport, California.

I’m fortunate to live close enough to the California coastline that I can occasionally just decide on the spur of the moment to “drive over the hill” and step out of the world of work to watch the sunset over the Pacific. This is what I decided to do yesterday. I drove over that hill with only a vague plan to see what conditions looked like and then most likely head north from Santa Cruz toward and perhaps beyond Davenport.

I almost never know exactly what I’ll find on the coast until I get there. Yesterday I had suspicions about the possibility of fog, but I also thought that clear sky might linger a while before the fog rolled in. For the most part it turned out that there was fog but that in most places it was a good distance offshore though starting to form in closer. However, it also turned out that there was a good amount of high cloudiness blocking the sunlight. In other words, the prospects were mixed – might be interesting light at the last minute, fog might roll in and cover everything, the clouds might thicken instead of thin. So I continued with no specific images in mind, driving past various familiar locations. As I descended toward Scott Creek Beach I caught a quick glimpse of a panorama across the beach that seemed like it might work as a wide angle shot, so I quickly turned around and returned to the spot. Once I got set up I realized that while it was a beautiful scene it wasn’t going to work as a photograph. But this scene, which required a longer focal length, caught my attention instead.

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