Tag Archives: steep

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

Rocky Knoll with Monterey Cypress Trees

January 16, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A grove of Monterey Cypress trees grows on top of a rocky ridge above the Pacific Ocean at Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

In my continuing attempt to mine every bit of ore possible from this scene… this is a closer study of the same tree-covered knoll that I posted recently. The rocky hill is near the end of a thin peninsula between Whalers Cove and Bluefish Cove at Point Lobos. It is covered with a wild confusion of plants, Monterey cypress trees, and rocks and the whole thing drops suddenly to the edge of the Pacific Ocean right below.

This is another in a group of photographs that I sort of think of as “how much dense detail can I cram into one frame” photographs. For this reason, I’m pretty certain that this will have a better chance of making sense in a decent sized photograph in which the detail can be enjoyed a bit more than it can be in this small jpg.

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
Flickr | Twitter (follow me) | Facebook (“Like” my page) | LinkedIn | Email

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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Natural Bridge Canyon

December 30, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A gravel wash in the bottom of the narrow confines of Natural Bridge Canyon, Death Valley National Park.

These narrow canyons, of which there are a number of great examples in Death Valley, can provide some interesting photographic opportunities, but they also can pose some real challenges. Much of the rock in these places is, frankly, rather drab and of low contrast. However, at the right time of day and on a day with the right light and in the right parts of these canyons, the glowing light reflected down into the canyons from overhead rock walls can produce warm and diffused light and bring interesting colors to the place.

I made an unusual decision to use a very long focal length for this photograph – it was shot with a 100-400mm zoom at 330 mm. More typically I would probably tend to use wide angle focal lengths in the confines of such a canyon. However, because I wanted to juxtapose the different colors and shapes of the sections of canyon wall along the narrow and twisting wash, I chose the long lens to compress the distance. Although I think the photograph creates a feeling that I’m positioned very close to the foreground rocks and the darker bit of canyon wall on the left, I was actually quite a distance back from this spot.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Basin Mountain, Afternoon Light and Haze

December 6, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Basin Mountain and the Sierra Nevada crest rise above Round Valley on a hazy afternoon.

There is a certain kind of afternoon light in the eastern Sierra that is hard to photograph – looking up at the range from Owens Valley into the afternoon sun the haze can be bluish and decrease detail and the light can be very bright. But it is a part of the experience of the “east side” that we all know, I think. I can’t say that I’ve tried to photograph it very often, but I stopped just off of highway 395 in the Round Valley area on this early October afternoon when I saw the rugged foothills rising above the sagebrush towards the Buttermilks and Basin Mountain and the Sierra crest around Mount Humphreys beyond.

For me, this is one sort of classic eastern Sierra view. Imagine a very warm or even hot afternoon. You are driving through high desert sagebrush country – which often surprises people who are headed to the Sierra and are thinking about high mountains and cool temperatures. The mountains to the west rise precipitously from the floor of Owens Valley, with peaks that can be nearly 10,000 feet higher than the lowlands in some places. You see snow on the peaks and sometimes on the slopes of the mountains. You know that there are places up there where you can park a car and walk out in cool mountain air and head up a trail through meadows and forests and cross a ridge into the alpine world – but the terrain gives little hint of this from below. The light gleaming on snow fields and rock projected into the sky reminds you of this other world high above.

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.

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

Tree-Covered Ridge, Mist

November 6, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Mist from an autumn storm obscures trees growing on a steep ridge near the rim of Yosemite Valley.

Since I’ve written about this series of photographs of cloud- and fog-shouded subjects in Yosemite Valley several times during the past week, I’ll keep the background short on this one. I used a long lens to isolate small scenes in which the clouds of an autumn storm alternately hid and (sometimes barely) revealed trees, cliffs, and rocky spires along the rim of Yosemite Valley.

In a few of the photographs I was thinking about how close I could get to having very little or almost no detail in the photograph and still make it work. Here the only real detail is in the diagonal of trees and rocks that is mostly obscured by the clouds, with only a few bits of tree being a bit darker. What I’m thinking of is more along the lines of suggesting the presence of the bit of cliff and trees than actually trying to show it explicitly.

This is, for me at least, a tricky thing! The temptation is to boost contrast in post to get more definition from the tree shapes, but that quickly leads to something that has a very different mood than that of the actual scene – and which can easily look phony. I think I’m heading in a direction I like here, but I don’t think I’ll know for sure until I have a chance to try a print in a week or so.

(By the way, if your monitor is even a little bit “off,” you may see some colorations in this monochrome image that aren’t really there. Sorry! :-)

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.

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