Tag Archives: steep

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Stairway, San Francisco

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Stairway, San Francisco
A steep stairway ascends through a residential area of San Francisco.

Stairway, San Francisco. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A steep stairway ascends through a residential area of San Francisco.

The terrain underlying the city of San Francisco is in many places quite complex. Before settlement it was a place of hills cut by streams, flatlands, and shallows that were later filled in to expand the available land area. I made this photograph in an area along a ridge where the “sidewalks” are sometimes more vertical than horizontal and mostly consist of stairways.

There’s something a bit mysterious about this bending stairway as it winds upwards and twists out of sight. The mixture of angles and textures here is also fascinating — wood and concrete, horizontal and vertical, rigidly aligned to the horizon and angled in odd directions.

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.

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

Big Sur Headlands, Autumn Light and Fog

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Big Sur Headlands, Autumn Light and Fog
Thinning fog, brilliant autumn sunlight , and receding headlands along the rugged Big Sur coast.

Big Sur Headlands, Autumn Light and Fog. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Thinning fog, brilliant autumn sunlight , and receding headlands along the rugged Big Sur coast.

This is a spot that I visit on virtually every trip to the Big Sur Coast. The place where I pull over and find this view is not a spot where you would likely consider stopping. The view is not really all that visible from the roadway, and I think I first found it by spotting the subject from another place and speculating about where I might need to go to find the angle I was looking for… and then successively trying a series of pull-outs until I found one that worked. I know — figuring out which wide spot on the road to use for my camera position sort of diminishes the romance of the whole thing!

But this view! There is a series of tall and steep headlands that fall directly to the Pacific Ocean here. Beyond there is a shallow bay, and then the coast curves back toward the ocean in the distance. The formation of the successive headlands is mirrored in a series of successive ridges running from the ocean back toward peaks. Of course, based on the photograph I made on this visit you will have to take some of this on faith since you cannot see it. Because the coastline here gradually heads further east as it goes south, by late morning the sun’s light reflects off the water, and when there is a bit of fog, as on this day, the effect is remarkable. The atmosphere truly glows, and it is almost too bright to look at. Since I have photographed this before, I’ll point out that that there are two features of this rendition that are a bit different. First, that glowing fog is unusual. Second, I decided to go with a bit broader composition here, and I included the sweep of the darker near ridge at the bottom of the frame.

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.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Approaching Storm, Big Sur Coast

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Approaching Storm, Big Sur Coast
Haze and fog along the mountain tops as a storm approaches along the rugged Big Sur coast of California.

Approaching Storm, Big Sur Coast. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Haze and fog along the mountain tops as a storm approaches along the rugged Big Sur coast of California.

This photograph actually from a couple of years ago. (More on that subject in a moment.) I made it on one of my Big Sur day trips, on which I leave home early, photograph before the crowds arrive, and then head home by early afternoon. Yes, I’m fortunate to live close enough to do that. If I recall correctly, on this day I was hoping to beat a weather front to the coast, expecting to photograph the sunny boundary just ahead of the clouds. Conditions were different from what I expected — by the time I arrived at this point the front’s cloud shield was moving over the coastline, becoming more dramatic by the moment. Fog along the coastal hills was dissipating and there was still some haze.

Not only is this photograph from two years ago, but it is a fresh rendition of a scene that I shared at that time, based either on the very same exposure or one made at almost the same time. I went with an (unusual for me) square crop in order to contrast the dark mass of the steep cliffs rising from the sea and the more distant and lighter water, mountains, and sky. For those of you who may occasionally have dreams about where you would like to live, if you look very closely at the dark foreground ridge you might spot a place that could make you very jealous.

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.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Winter Surf and Coastal Bluffs

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Winter Surf and Coastal Bluffs
Winter surf rolls in beneath steep shoreline bluffs along the rugged Big Sur coast of California.

Winter Surf and Coastal Bluffs. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Winter surf rolls in beneath steep shoreline bluffs along the rugged Big Sur coast of California.

Although I have been down this section of California’s spectacular coast in the past few weeks, this photograph comes from a few years ago — in a very different time when many of the things causing tumult in our world were almost inconceivable. Among them, back then the idea that a pandemic might change our attitudes about traveling to such places was not even on our radar. Let’s hope that we can return to a world more like that one soon.

I think of this as a somewhat generic photograph of the Big Sur coastline — not because it isn’t a spot of great beauty, but because such places are everywhere along this part of the western edge of the continent. The sun was out on this late winter day, but storms out in the Pacific had brought impressively large waves, raising a thin layer of sea spray along the edge of the water.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.