“Monterey Cypress Trees, Cliffs and Surf” — Pacifc surf crashes against the base of cliffs with Monterey cypress trees.
Point Lobos and I go back a long ways. Shortly after my parents moved to the San Francisco Bay Area — I was four years old then — they began to take us on interesting day trips. A favorite was going to Monterey, which was a much smaller and quieter place then. A highlight of those visits was traveling a few miles south to Point Lobos, where we explored tide pools, walked the trails, and watched sea lions. This was one of the first places where I began to make photographs, likely with a simple Brownie camera and some black and white film.
“Graffiti Wall and Bars” — Complex paint patterns on a graffiti wall with metal bars, Ghent.
This is another photograph from the “graffiti alley” in Ghent, Belgium. This short, narrow walkway connecting two streets is covered with street art, tags, and graffiti of all sorts. The imagery covers the walls higher than you can reach and even extends to the sidewalk beneath your feet. If you are lucky you might find someone creating new work when you visit.
A lot of the work is text-based and/or representational. That’s interesting stuff, but I like to take a step back from the individual pieces and consider the layers and colors that build up over time. Older work is partly obscured by newer stuff, and eventually it seems that a lot of the old material simply disappears beneath the new. Here, as in some of my other photographs of this site, I decided to move close and focus on the abstract components — the broad strokes, the colors, and the surfaces to which the paint is applied.
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“Winter Storm Surf” — Giant winter storm waves crash ashore along the Northern California coast.
At one point while photographing the late-December winter storm surf along California’s coastline, I momentarily hit the light jackpot. While the far horizon was still dark and stormy, a break in the shoreline clouds cast bright sunlight on the surf crashing onto this beach. On a typical day the largest waves here would be more like the one at the bottom of the frame. On this day the biggest waves were huge and loud and sent spray far inland.
Many of us head straight to the coast when conditions like these arise. It is a spectacular thing and not to be missed. At the same time, authorities issue lots of warnings about the dangers. The dangers are real and you certainly want to keep your distance from the sea when it behaves like this. But with a degree of caution you can — and should! — safely watch the show.
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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
“Breaker” — Waves generated by a big Pacific Ocean storm break near the California coastline.
It is quite an experience to get up close and personal with huge storm surf like this — though having a very long lens and finding the right shooting location helps makes it safe. We headed to the coast south of San Francisco during California’s bout of giant waves between Christmas and New Year’s Day. At this location a peninsula juts out into the ocean between a beach and a bay. At the tip of this peninsula one is very close to the waves as they break and roll into that bay.
In a way, photographing these waves is more or less like photographing moving landscapes. They have slopes, peaks, and cliffs, and the effects of wind and light are part of the scene. The main difference is that everything is ephemeral. The landscape stands still, but when photographing waves the landscape photographer has to think more like someone photographing active wildlife or sports, making instantaneous, intuitive decisions about timing and composition.
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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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