Tag Archives: sunset

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

Half Dome, Dusk

1 Comment
Half Dome, Dusk - Half Dome and lone tree at dusk, from Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park.
Half Dome and lone tree at dusk, from Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park.

Half Dome, Dusk. Yosemite National Park, California. September 16, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Half Dome and lone tree at dusk, from Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park.

Last week I was making the long drive back over the Tioga Pass Road from the “east side” following a short pack trip up into McGee Canyon. After catching an early dinner in Mammoth, I headed north and then up over the pass, crossing into Yosemite about an hour before sunset. I figured that this would give me one more chance to do a quick bit of photography before calling it quits and focusing on the drive back to the Bay Area. Since I had spent some time earlier in the week shooting in the Dana Fork meadows and in Tuolumne Meadows itself, I decided to continue on and just see where I might end up a half hour or so before sunset.

It turns out that the “where” ended up being Olmsted Point – not exactly an original place to shoot, but what the heck! In the back of my mind, of course, was the possibility of shooting the classic “back side” view of Half Dome if the evening light proved interesting enough. So one of the first things I did was scope out the precise spot where I wanted to shoot that subject a bit later. Then I turned my attention elsewhere. It turns out that there are quite a few other interesting things to photograph here: the trees across the road on the large glaciated dome, the trees below the parking area, sparse trees growing along ridge tops all around, side light from the setting sun, and much more. So while waiting to see how that Half Dome thing might develop, I shot a bunch of other subjects, all the while watching the evolving light down towards The Valley. At first it didn’t seem all that interesting. The light was a bit flat, perhaps due to cloud cover to the west, and the potentially interesting overhead clouds had a bit of a strange color cast. However, I suspected that after the sun set that there might be some interesting glow on the face from the west, and that the clouds still might pick up some interesting color. And, in fact, this photograph was made when the sun was no longer shining directly on Half Dome – instead it was illuminated to that “after glow” of the sunset as the very last sun began to color the streaming clouds beyond.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | 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: Abstract, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Textures

Cloud Forms #3 – September 16, 2012

Leave a comment
Cloud Forms #3 - September 16, 2012 - Evening sky above Olmsted Point in the Yosemite Sierra.
Evening sky above Olmsted Point in the Yosemite Sierra.

Cloud Forms #3 – September 16, 2012. Yosemite National Park, California. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening sky above Olmsted Point in the Yosemite Sierra.

On my return from a mid-September eastern Sierra backpack trip, I again passed through Yosemite National Park on the Tioga Pass Road. By a bit of luck combined with some planning, I managed to time of my passage so that I could be there during the last hour or so of the day, figuring I might try to grab a few last opportunistic photographs before driving back to the Bay Area after dark. With that long, dark drive ahead of me, I decided to aim for a stopping point a bit further west along the route, and I stopped about a half hour before sunset at Olmsted Point.

Although I have a number of photographs of the iconic image of the “backside” of Half Dome from this location, the lighting here can be interesting enough that I’ll stop and try “one more time” if I happen to be there. As is often the case, the lighting did not initially appear too promising. The typical autumn wildfire haze was in the air, lending a bit of a yellow/brown color to the hazy lower atmosphere, and the higher clouds seems thin. But if there is one thing that I (and just about any other landscape photographer!) have learned by now, it is that the last minutes of daylight {and the first moments after the sun sets} can be full of surprises. I began with the practical step of scoping out a composition of the iconic dome, but then I turned my attention to lots of other subjects that surround Olmsted Point: the sparse trees ascending the granite slabs across the roadway, higher ridges across Tenaya Canyon and in the opposite direction, the Sierra crest around Mount Conness, and the sky. For a brief moment after the sunlight had left Olmsted Point, the final rays passed through atmosphere near the western horizon and lit up the patterned layers of clouds and drifting wildfire smoke.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | 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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Dusk Haze, Stinson Beach

Leave a comment
Dusk Haze, Stinson Beach - Dusk haze from northern California forest fires colors the sunset sky above Stinson Beach.
Dusk haze from northern California forest fires colors the sunset sky above Stinson Beach.

Dusk Haze, Stinson Beach. North of San Francisco, California. August 29, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dusk haze from northern California forest fires colors the sunset sky above Stinson Beach.

The typical wildfires of September and October are a mixed blessing. They are most certainly tragic for those whose homes and livelihoods are affected by them, and Californians have learned to take their dangers very seriously. At the same time, fire is a natural part of the ecology in this part of the world, and a healthy environment for forests and grasslands seems to require periodic fire. In any case, the fires can also seem like a mixed blessing. If you go to areas affected by the smoke at this time of year – and it happens essentially every year – looking for clear vistas, you may well find them impeded by smoke and haze. On the other hand, if you look at this phenomenon just a bit differently you may find that the hazy atmosphere can produce its own visual magic – and especially at sunset.

This is another of several photographs I made at the end of the day just below Stinson Beach, as we climbed into the headlands hills of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area near sunset during our drive back down the coast from the Mendocino area. With this sort of atmosphere it is hard to know in advance just how things will evolve – will the day simply come to a quiet and gray conclusion, or will the golden hour light illuminate and color the atmosphere in brilliant sometimes almost unbelievable ways. The entire sky did not look like this, but down close to the horizon and right above the shoreline extending from Stinson Beach it did light up with a very colorful glow, so I used a long lens to limit the angle of view to the most colorful portions of the sky and haze.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | 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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: San Francisco

Tree and Pinnacle, Pacific Sunset

Leave a comment
Tree and Pinnacle, Pacific Sunset - The last evening light falls on a tree and a rocky pinnacle high above the Pacific Ocean north of San Francisco, California.
The last evening light falls on a tree and a rocky pinnacle high above the Pacific Ocean north of San Francisco, California.

Tree and Pinnacle, Pacific Sunset. Marin Headlands, California. August 29, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The last evening light falls on a tree and a rocky pinnacle high above the Pacific Ocean north of San Francisco, California.

On the return drive from our late-August sojourn to the Mendocino Coast, we returned to the Bay Area by the less efficient but more spectacular route and drove the coast on Highway 1, the “coast highway.” For the most part the road hugs the coastline, alternately dipping down to the shoreline and climbing to the tops of very tall coastal bluffs, and occasionally running inland for a short distance. We stopped in Point Reyes Station for dinner (and we can now heartily recommend Osteria Stellina!) and then continued on – and as we did I began to get a sense of where we might be for the golden hour light. It seemed like we would likely pass Stinson Beach – which seemed fine, since I didn’t have an interest in photographing there – and be somewhere south of there in the Marin Headlands.

As we ascended the high and steep road perched along the cliffs south of Stinson Beach, a lot of stuff started happening all at once. I knew that we were getting very close to “that” light, when we spotted a lone coyote along a ridge above the road… right below a large ridgeline rock and above which the nearly full moon had just appeared. Really! So we obviously had to stop and see what we could do with that subject – which turned out to be more difficult that I had thought. At about this time other likely “targets” started to appear, and I photographed back towards Stinson Beach, directly into the sun-lit haze from northern California forest fires. Then I looked closer to my location and saw this windswept tree catching the last bit of light, with a single rugged pinnacle behind it, and beyond that the surface of the Pacific Ocean, fading into the mist and picking up the pink tones of the setting sun.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | 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.