Tag Archives: surf

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

Winter Surf, Asilomar Beach, Twilight

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Winter Surf, Asilmar Beach, Twilight - Pacific Grove, California.
Winter Surf, Asilomar Beach, Twilight

Winter Surf, Asilomar Beach, Twilight. Pacific Grove, California. December 19, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Winter surf at twilight at Asilomar Beach, Pacific Grove, California.

I was in the Monterey Peninsula area for several days in mid-December for mostly non-photographic reasons, but I managed to get away and make some photographs on several occasions. On this evening I had just enough time to quickly head over to the Pacific Grove area at Asilomar Beach in the evening. I arrived a bit before sunset and quickly found a spot with several photographic possibilities.

I began by shooting along a the beach toward the setting sun, and including the figures of lots of people who were out strolling along this beach. I though that the silhouettes of the people were interesting, along with the colors of the late-day sky and their reflections on the water and the wet areas of the sand. After the sun dropped below the horizon I mostly stopped photographing people – my shutter speeds had to be too low to stop their motion – and I began to work with longer exposures that allowed the water to blur to a greater or lesser extent, while focusing more on the intense colors of the post-sunset period.

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.
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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: Ocean & Coast

Twilight, Monterey Bay

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Twilight, Monterey Bay
Twilight, Monterey Bay

Twilight, Monterey Bay. Pacific Grove, California. December 19, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Post-sunset light over the winter surf of Monterey Bay, California.

I’ve had some opportunities to photograph in the Monterey and Big Sur area this week. For the most part, it has been a bit tricky as the light has been less than cooperative. I was out and about early on this day but ended up spending a couple hours looking for photographs… and never found one! (I did find some very interesting locations that I had to previously visited, however, and I think I’ll be heading back to photograph them in the future when I have better light.)

In the evening I thought that I might just head over to the coast line along Pacific Grove. Initially I stopped to photograph along a beach near Asilomar, where people were walking toward the sunset, the surf was impressive, and the shoreline sand reflected the colors of the sky. Then I turned to my right and thought that I might try another minimalist seascape, this time by waiting until the sun had set and the light diminished to the point that I could make some relatively long exposures. I anchored the scene with the bit or rock at the lower left corner and then tried to time my long exposures for moments when the rocks would be all or partially uncovered. By the time I finished shooting it was almost too dark to see my camera!

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.
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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: Imaginary Landscapes, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Surf, Rocks, and Horizon

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Surf, Rocks, and Horizon
Surf, Rocks, and Horizon

Surf, Rocks, and Horizon. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. April 26, 2009. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An imaginary landscape from surf, rocks and horizon at Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

I refer to photographs like this one as “imaginary landscapes” – though I suppose that this one is actually an imaginary seascape. The boundary between these photographs and my Regular Old Garden Variety Landscapes is a bit nebulous, but it relates to how far and how intentionally the interpretation of the scene departs from what might be regarded as its objective reality. In this case, some things were done at the time of exposure and some other things were done in post that make this image more obviously a subjective interpretation of the scene than might be the case with many of my other photographs. But you could see that by looking at it, right?

In any case, this is a single photographic “capture” made with a long exposure time that was extended by the use of a nine-stop neutral density filter – and this is what creates the majority of the soft quality of the image. Some additional work was done in post to further manipulate the original image – work with saturation and certain ways of diffusing portions of the image and so forth. In the end, little of that matters beyond the fact that these techniques were ways of producing the image that I had in mind, and which I intend to evoke something about the nature of the real scene upon which it is based.

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

Rocks and Fog, Point Lobos

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Rocks and Fog, Point Lobos
Rocks and Fog, Point Lobos

Rocks and Fog, Point Lobos. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. July 21, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A rocky peninsula drops into the ocean on a foggy morning at Point Lobos State Reserve.

On this morning it was foggy and drizzling at Point Lobos and there was a surprising amount of surf for a summer morning. When I arrived shortly after the park opened, there were few other people about. With the moving water and the low light conditions, I decided that this was a good time to do some work with long daytime exposures, so I got out my 9-stop neutral density filters and went about looking for compositions.

After shooting down closer to the water in the cove to the left of these rocks, I wandered up a trail along the shoreline that took me to a point that was a bit higher above the water. As I looked back I saw that the rocks that defined the cove that I had been shooting appeared to head straight out into the water towards a distant peninsula and then submerge – a rather different take on this feature.

By using this filter I was able to get an eight-second exposure in this light. Longer would have been better, but the light was beginning to come through the fog a bit and I didn’t have much choice. With an exposure this “short” I had to be a bit careful about timing the shots, trying to get the right amount of water breaking over the rocks.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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