Tag Archives: sky

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Textures, Photographs: Urban/Street

Shadows on Parking Lot Wall

June 22, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Shadows from light fall across a parking lot wall.

A photograph made on a walk with a body and a 50mm lens and not much else – a walk from my home. This wall has often intrigued me, as have these small lamps up near the roof line. On this day I was out in the “terrible light” time of the day – midday, when shadows are almost as close to vertical as they get around here. Not only was I attracted to the interesting slight diagonals of the long shadows, but also to the colors of weathered green paint, deep blue sky, and the messy textures of the parking lot.

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

Seagull in Flight with Starfish

June 21, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A seagull in flight carrying a starfish in its beak.

This is an odd little photograph that I’ve been holding on to for some time, waiting to finally post it. When you photograph the natural word, every so often something unexpected happens, and sometimes you don’t even realize what happened until later. (I once made a photograph of a fog shrouded Pacific Coast scene, and it wasn’t until months later while working on the photograph in post that I realized that a small but energetic waterfall was in the scene!)

In mid-May I spent some time photographing shore birds skimming along the cliff edge above the Pacific coast not far from Davenport California. The basic approach is to find a location where the birds come close to the cliff edge and where there is a suitable background (if the birds follow the “right” path) and to then wait and quickly track the birds as they cross my field of view, often shooting in burst mode when they are in their best positions. After a while the actions begin (fortunately!) to become somewhat automatic: spot bird or group of birds, find bird(s) in viewfinder, get birds into the right part of the frame, begin panning with the anticipated path of the bird(s), keep bird(s) in the good part of the frame and under AF points, track and shoot, watch bird(s) disappear, lather, rinse, repeat.

As this bird went past I recall thinking something like, “What the heck was in its mouth?” No time to actually see while shooting, but later I found that it was carrying a medium size starfish, fully intact and with legs extending from its mouth!

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

Flooded Tuolumne Meadow, Mounts Dana and Gibbs, Evening

June 20, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Evening light on snow-covered Mounts Dana and Gibbs reflected on the surface of the flooding Tuolumne River, Tuolumne Meadows.

Tioga Pass opened this year on June 5, a bit later than usual. The late opening was due to a slightly greater than average amount of precipitation this past winter and a cold and wet May. As a consequence, there was a lot of snow on opening day, and lots and lots of run-off water.

I made this photograph in the evening in Tuolumne Meadows as the late light was just leaving the tops of the trees below Lembert Dome and beginning to color the summits of Mounts Dana and Gibbs with warm “golden hour” light. The Tuolumne River was so full that it had flooded large sections of the meadow – parts looked more like “Tuolumne Lake” than Tuolumne Meadow. Because the meadow was still covered with snow, the surface of the flooded areas was full of ice and slush. The overall appearance was closer to that of a winter scene, even though the calendar said early June.

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Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Tire Shop and Palm Tree

June 18, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

An old and dilapidated tire shop with a single palm tree.

And now a break for something completely different from the Yosemite photographs I’ve posted for the better part of the past two weeks. Last weekend I had a couple hours of free time during the middle of the day – the toughest time for light, especially so close to the summer solstice. So I decided to go out for an urban walk and see if I could make some photographs that took on this bright and harsh light instead of trying to avoid it.

I have photographed this building before. It is an older garage that is now a tire shop. The building is, despite being painted and so forth, quite dilapidated – window and door frames don’t line up, the stucco is cracked and patched, and walls and roof lines intersect at odd angles. The paint job on the building couldn’t be more, well, boring. The building is roughly gray, with some blocky black lettering and the painted image of a tire. There is no vegetation and a plain sidewalk runs in front of it. The whole thing just seemed perfect for a harsh, midday light photograph.

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