Tag Archives: state

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

Surf, Weston Beach

March 30, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Long exposure photograph of surf and boulders, Weston Beach, Point Lobos State Reserve

This part of a small series of photographs I made at Weston Beach, Point Lobos on a mid-January day. The location is very familiar to me, to the point that I recognize many specific rocks and formations here. I have photographed quite a few times, but I continue to find new things to see here. Part of that is from visiting in different seasons and conditions of weather and light, part from looking more closely, and part from thinking of different ways to photograph the familiar subject. More than once I’ve had a feeling that I was “done” with the location, only to go back and find a new way of seeing it to investigate.

I was playing with several ideas when I made this series of photographs. Obviously, I was working with long exposures that allowed the motion of the waves to blur in various ways, smoothing out the surface of the otherwise-rough water and turning shoreline waves into transparent mist. I was also working with a different sort of light than that which I would usually seek out here. More often I look for soft light, produced by some overcast, an early/late hour, or even fog. But it was very clear on this mid-morning visit and the light falling on the rocks was somewhat stark and harsh, especially when I shot almost into the sunlight. It seemed to me that the edginess of the brightly lit rock might be a counterpoint to the softness of the long-exposure blurring of the water. Obviously, I also went with black and white here. Also, a bit unusual for me, I worked with an ultra-wide angle focal length, getting quite close to the foreground but letting the distant subjects be small and accentuating that by placing the horizon very close to the top of the frame.

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

Monterey Cypress Trunks

March 27, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The trunks of Monterey Cypress trees along the north shore of Point Lobos State Reserve, California

In mid-January I made my first trip back to Point Lobos in quite a few months. This is a place that I know well, having visited since my parents took me when I was a child. I’ve photographed all over the park – though I certainly have not done everything there that can be done, and I’ll continue to photograph the place. On this visit I went without any real preconceived ideas about what I wanted to shoot. Often when I go to such a place I have at least some such ideas – perhaps I’m thinking about wildlife, or maybe I want to photograph in fog, or there might be a forecast of high surf. But this time? I think I just wanted to go there and be in the old familiar landscape of sun and waves and birds and all the rest.

I arrived early, just after the park opened, and when I drove it there were few others there yet. (Point Lobos can become very busy later in the day as tourists from the popular Monterey and Carmel areas show up.) More or less by chance I ended up down at iconic Weston Beach, where I stopped when I saw some arrangements of shoreline boulders that seemed to present some possibilities and because the early morning light was glancing off of sea stacks and islands to the south. I shot here for perhaps a couple of hours and then decided to head back over the Whalers Cove, where I can sometimes photograph interesting birds. When I didn’t see the birds there that I hoped for, I decided to shoulder my gear and take the trail along the dramatic north shore, hoping for some soft light. This little scene caught my attention along the trail, at first because of the interesting back-light, but I soon saw a lot more potential here, especially with the trees tilting at wild angles.

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Window and Rusted Chimney

March 21, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

During the first weekend of 2013 I joined a bunch of Bay Area photographers who were taking part in a “long exposure photo walk,” shooting with this group at dawn near the Golden Gate Bridge and then later in the morning at this historic location. China Camp was, as I understand it, a shrimp fishing village established on the shoreline of the northern San Francisco Bay in the 1800s by immigrants from China. It has long since been abandoned and now is part of a California state park. It seems mostly like a place of quiet and solitude these days, and the most common sounds during my visit were the cries of shore birds.

A few buildings, some apparently reconstructed or restored, remain from the original village. They sit right along the shoreline in a shallow cove with an open view across the northern bay. I had beautiful soft light on this visit, as a Pacific winter storm was just beginning to clear, leaving it its wake plenty of atmospheric moisture and cloudiness. I photographed the very weathered side of this building as that light vacillated between cloudy gray and nearly full sun, catching this shot as some sun shone through, though softened a bit by the clouds.

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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. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Love Window, China Camp

March 20, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Opaque window and door of a weathered wooden building at China Camp, California

There are any number of places with name “China Camp” (or similar variations), but this one is located along the shores of the northern San Francisco Bay. I’m not an expert on the history of the place by any means, but I understand that the village was established by immigrants from China in the 1800s and was, over a century ago, a thriving village of several hundred people who focused on harvesting shrimp. Today it is part of a California State park and can be a very quiet and peaceful place.

I visited for the first time this winter, along with a number of other photographers who went there as part of a “photo walk.” After photographing some nearby landscape subjects I walked over to the remaining buildings from the old village and spent some time poking around the area looking for photographs. While I think of this as a sort of ghost town, unlike some other such places in California, this one includes some modern improvements and restoration and even some museum facilities. I was intrigued by some windows and doors on the exterior of this wooden building, including this four-pane window on which someone had inscribed the word “love.”

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: state

Surf, Weston Beach

Monterey Cypress Trunks

Window and Rusted Chimney

Love Window, China Camp

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