Tag Archives: travel

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

Sailboats, Pacific Ocean

June 4, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Sailboats under spring skies along the Pacific Ocean coast south of San Francisco.

Memorial Day was a day of nearly perfect weather along the California coast between Santa Cruz and Point Reyes. (When we eventually got to Point Reyes it was nearly windless – and anyone who has been there knows how rare that is.) We started in Santa Cruz for breakfast and then headed north up Highway 1 along the coast. A ways north of Santa Cruz we came upon that zone where the high fog was just breaking up along a border with areas of blue sky. Everything, from the water to the clouds to the sky was some shade of luminous blue.

The photograph was made from a high bluff not far from Waddell Creek. We initially stopped to look for shore birds, since they fly very close to the edge of the bluff, using updrafts to travel along the coast. The high vantage point made the color of the ocean a bit deeper and made more of it visible between the near shore and the horizon. The sailboats were a surprise – I don’t usually see them along this section of the coast.

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

Cascade Creek Spring Torrent

June 2, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A small tree stands in the raging spring torrent of Cascade Creek, Yosemite National Park.

This may be the final photograph in this series I shot in early May when I visited this seasonal cascade on the way into Yosemite Valley. Compared to some of the others this one takes in a larger portion of the scene, mainly so that I could include the little leafless tree or bush at the lower left, as it stands against the tremendous force of the rushing water descending steeply among the rocks.

This creek is fed by seasonal snow melt fairly early in the season because the ares that feed its flow are at a relatively lower elevation. For a while each year, but especially in a wet year like this one, this little creek rages as it drops precipitously down this narrow canyon towards a point below where it flows into the Merced River. A bridge provides an interesting vantage point from which to shoot almost directly down into the torrent.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Ferry Building and Embarcadero Center Building

May 27, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Embarcadero Center and Ferry Building near the San Francisco waterfront on a foggy morning.

This is another photograph that I’ve been sitting on for a while – first while it languished as a raw file between last July and early this year when I did my annual review of the previous year’s images, and then after post-processing as I posted photographs from Death Valley, the Sierra, and the coast. It has been sitting on my desktop long enough.

The photograph was made from the dock side of the San Francisco Ferry Building, looking back over the building past its iconic tower towards some of the modern buildings in the Financial District. The light was very interesting – there was still, obviously, the usual summer morning overcast where I was. However, behind me and out over the Bay the clouds were breaking up and the light was starting to come in at a low angle from off the bay, providing a glow to features like the windows of the tall background building.

This photo was made while walking streets in San Francisco and shooting mostly “old school” with just a 50mm prime.

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

‘Rim of the World’ Overlook, Morning

May 26, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The view toward Yosemite and the High Sierra from the ‘Rim of the World’ overlook above the Tuolumne River canyon along highway 120.

‘Rim of the World’ is the name given to a scenic overlook above the deep valley of the Tuolumne River along route 120, the northern route into Yosemite National Park. It is something of an odd place. It is a fairly pedestrian traffic pullout, though it overlooks the immense and impressively deep canyon of the Tuolumne. But the view is at least partially obstructed by things like power lines. However, it is a view that on clear days can extend great distances to very high Sierra peaks.

I most often simply blow past the spot on my way to or from the park. However, on this morning as I passed I thought the low morning light looked interesting so I found a spot to turn around and drove back. There was a bit of high cloudiness, and the light was coming across the folds of these foreground hills from the right, lighting up various bits of ridge and trees and illuminating the morning haze enough to amplify the effect of distance. If I’m not mistaken, the further ridge with its faintly seen snow fields is in the area of Mount Hoffman.

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