Tag Archives: summer

“AutumnIsAroundTheCorner” Day (Morning Musings for 8/18/14)

August 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 5 Comments

Late summer morning fog clears about oak and grass-covered California hills. (And yes, it is the same image I shared earlier as today’s daily photograph.)

I first encountered “AutumnIsAroundTheCorner” day — which is my own invention, so don’t try to look it up! — many years ago on a Sierra Nevada backpacking trip. I recall the day specifically, even though it was decades ago. At the time I didn’t know quite what it was even though I clearly sensed the symptoms. As we hiked, we passed an expansive, remote meadow in which a large group of deer were feeding. It was a summer day by the calendar, but it felt different from all of the previous days of that summer. The day was windy and we felt compelled to wear warmer clothes than on other days on this trip. After that I began to notice it more regularly and pay attention to it, and I am now aware of its arrival every year.

It comes unannounced and not on any specific day. For me it typically shows up on a day in the middle of August, at a point when we are just a bit closer to the end of summer than to its beginning. I suspect that its arrival is a rather subjective thing, and that it varies by location and each person’s exposure and sensitivity to natural patterns — though this week when I pointed out its arrival to my wife while we were walking, she agreed that she felt it, too.

I cannot quite put my finger on what it is that I sense, even though I’m certain that it is here when I do sense it. I think that the quality of light has something to do with it, and yesterday we both agreed that it made sense to speak of this light as being somehow “softer.” I know it when I see it, and when I then pay attention to the light I detect a certain loss of clarity in the atmosphere, almost as if there is a bit more of a luminous haze.

But it isn’t just the light. One August I was backpacking across a meadow in the Yosemite Sierra and suddenly becoming aware of it. Again, although I recognized what I was feeling, I wasn’t completely clear about the specific cause, though I had a very clear sense that it had to do with a change in the sound quality of the wind and the way it carried across space. More recently I experienced it while hiking though a place much like that in the photograph accompanying this post, and as I hiked I tried to understand as many aspects of it as I could. The morning breeze had a crisp edge, even though the sunlight was warm. There was a glowing haze as morning fog cleared. I walked past piles of fallen oak leaves and noticed a faint sweet, musty autumn fragrance, and as I walked on them I felt and heard their crunch. I wondered whether it might be that, at some subconscious level, I was aware that the sun was now a bit lower in the sky, or if I was more aware that seasonal plants had stopped growing and were now in decline.

On this day, whenever it arrives and without any doubt, I have a certain awareness of the inevitable approach of autumn and the fading away of summer. Until this day I live in the patterns of summer, taking the warm weather for granted, complaining about the heat, and making summer plans and perhaps putting them off, comfortable in the knowledge that there is plenty of summer left. I watch my vegetable garden grow and anticipate the ripening of vegetables and fruit. But then, on “AutumnIsAroundTheCorner” day, my perspective switches — now summer is no longer coming nor here, but instead coming to an end. Summer things must be done soon. It is time to plant a fall garden. And out there on the horizon of my thinking now are autumn and then winter… my favorite seasons of the year.

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.© Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Oaks and Grass, Late Summer

August 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Late summer morning fog clears about oak and grass-covered California hills

Today’s photographic journey was a short one — back to a local park where I have photographed for quite a few years, though not recently. This is a place that I used to go to almost every week, and where I hiked just about every trail, to the point that I became intimately familiar with the place in all seasons. It is a landscape of rolling hills with a few high, rocky outcroppings, many oak trees, and grassland. In the manner of most of California, the grass deeply affects the appearance — changing from “impossible green” in winter and spring to brown or golden, depending upon your disposition. I think of it as golden.

This morning I was in a bit of an autumn frame of mind. (A separate post today will have more to say about that pleasant state.) I got up early to discover that the area was covered by the typical coastal high fog. (I live perhaps an hour’s drive from the Pacific Ocean.) This is not the sort of romantic and moody fog that sits low to the ground and floats among trees. It is the higher, drab, gray kind of fog that produces an undifferentiated sky and very flat light. However, at this time of year that fog will most certainly clear, usually by mid-morning. So I left home in these gray conditions, planning to be among the oaks and grass when the fog began to break up.

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

Rocky Beach, Cove, and Fog

July 25, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A rocky beach and cove on a foggy summer morning along the Big Sur coast

On July 4 (of all days!) I headed out rather early so that I could make it to the upper Big Sur coastline before the tourist traffic arrived. I succeeded, and there were very few people when I arrived on the foggy coast and drove slowly south while looking for photographs. It being a major holiday, within a few hours the Pacific Coast Highway was filled with visitors, and I turned around and headed back home.

I like several things about this photograph, and most of them have to do with the fact that, in many ways, there is little all that special about the scene. I’m not sure that I could even find this particular cove again, at least not without some careful searching — this coastline is almost a continuum of such places, and almost anywhere you stop and look around a bit you can find such scenes. The fog is another typical element, especially in the summer months, when many visitors are surprised to find that the beautiful sunny scenes that they have seen in photographs are the exception rather than the rule. A typical summer morning in this region? Fog! To many of us Californians, however, this is part of the appeal. On a day when only a few miles inland the temperatures were well into the ninety degree range and perhaps higher, along this coastline I could enjoy the welcome and cool and damp of the coastal fog.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Summer Grass, Receding Ridges

January 12, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Late summer dry grass in golden hour light with distant hills receding into the haze

I made this photograph on what we sometimes refer to around here as a “random ride,” on an evening when I wanted to photograph something but didn’t have time or inclination to get to some of the usual spots. I formed a vague plan to head up towards the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, above the Santa Clara Valley. I have a long history with Mount Hamilton. Since I was brought up in the Santa Clara Valley (now known to many as “Silicon Valley”), we used to head up this road when the occasional snow fell in the Diablo Range. Today they close the road when there is snow, but back then the authorities were less restrictive, and many families found their way up there to make snow men and have the rare snowball fights. Later, during a long period when I was a very serious bicyclist, I used to regularly do the 60 or so mile round trip from the valley to the summit and back, often as a morning ride. It is literally true to say that I know many of the twists and turns of this road like I know the back of my hand. As I drove up there on this evening I could still anticipate what the road would do a couple of blind turns beyond where I was.

I think I had a general idea of some photographs including oak trees and grass land, perhaps with evening vistas beyond. But as I drove it seemed like the right wasn’t quite right in most of the promising locations, and where the light was good the subjects didn’t appeal so much. But this turned out to be one of those trips on which I wasn’t anxious about whether or not I would get photographs, so I continued on and even explored a bit. In fact, when all ways said and done, I photographed exactly one subject – making several photographs of this bit of grassy ridge with the sunset light behind it on the receding hills.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: summer

“AutumnIsAroundTheCorner” Day (Morning Musings for 8/18/14)

Oaks and Grass, Late Summer

Rocky Beach, Cove, and Fog

Summer Grass, Receding Ridges

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