I decided to try a little web-publishing experiment with part 2 of my series of posts on photographing Death Valley National Park – I’m sharing the draft publicly as I write it. I decided to try this for several reasons.
It is prime DeVa photography season now and for the next couple of months, and some people may find the information useful before I’m ready to release the final version.
There are lots of you who have DeVa experience of your own, and perhaps your comments and feedback may improve the post.
Maybe, just maybe, someone might be interested in watching the evolution of the post. I can flatter myself, right? :-)
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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.
Photograph from Weston Beach of wild winter seas near Bird Island and surrounding rocks along the California coastline at Point Lobos State Reserve as high clouds from an approaching winter storm begin to spread across the sky.
Since I decided to make this short mid-January visit to Point Lobos on the spur of the moment (after discovering that predicted rain was going to arrive later than expected) I had no idea what the tide conditions would be like. It turned out that the tide was in when I arrived and familiar locations like Weston Beach, the location from which I made this photograph, were fairly inundated by the tide and the high surf from the approaching weather front. So rather than trying to shoot the smaller details of the beach/cove – I saved that for later in the day – I decided to see what I could do with the longer views of the huge surf and the backlit haze and light fog that emphasized the rocks and bluffs receding into the distance. The light was very changeable, and the sky in this image explain why – for the most part there was a thin layer of high clouds, but there were also scattered thicker clouds that cast moving shadows across the water.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Detail of kelp and other debris (“wrack”) washed up by winter storms at Weston Beach, Point Lobos State Reserve, California.
Perhaps putting more trust in the words of the weatherman than was appropriate, I slept in on this morning, having heard the night before that it was going to rain. But when I got up the sun was shining, and I realized that I should have been out shooting! After taking care of a few morning chores, I managed to get away and drive down to the coast. I didn’t have a specific plan besides “the coast,” but as I drove I kept an eye on the sky since the weather from was starting to come ashore and high clouds were beginning to diffuse the light.
As I got near Monterey I figured I might as well take a look at Point Lobos, even though it seemed like the clouds might be starting to build along the coast – I figured that if it turned out to be too cloudy there I could just come back by way of Moss Landing. At Point Lobos the seas were fairly high and very choppy and the high clouds still hadn’t thickened so much as to cut off the light – although at times it got a bit murky, in between there was soft light diffused by high, translucent clouds. I started shooting the more distant landscapes from low bluffs near Weston Beach, working in the wind and the spray from the high surf. After doing this for a while I decided that I’d head a bit south before the time for my short visit ran out. As I walked around the curve of the edge of Weston Beach (which still seems to me like it really should be called Weston Cove – there isn’t much of a “beach” there at all) I saw that a lot of seaweed and kelp debris had been washed up by earlier high surf, and I decided to wander around there for a bit looking for interesting compositions that included the sandstone rocks and the kelp.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Three pelicans skim just above Waddell Beach along the California Pacific coast.
Considering just how many of the motion-blur pelican shots I’ve posted, I should probably have titled this one “Three MORE Pelicans Skimming the Beach.” ;-)
Besides the in-motion quality from the blur from camera motion, bird motion, and flapping wings, one thing that really struck me about this set of three pelicans was just how close to the sand they were flying. The lead bird was about as close as it could come without touching the sand with its wingtips.
A sight like this often makes me recall other encounters with animals in which they seemed to be doing something for the sheer joy of it: a bear I once saw travel across alpine rock fields to a high point on a ridge, where it stopped to take in the view for a minute or two before racing back down into a valley; a coyote in a high canyon in the eastern Sierra singing duets with its echo at dawn; and more. Of course I have no proof of this, but I like to imagine that these birds must find this low level flight to be exciting.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
keywords: motion, blur, pacific, ocean, sea, coast, highway, one, coastal, california, usa, motion, blur, in, flight, pelican, bird, wildlife, nature, surf, wave, sand, reflection, wing, low, skim, beach, diagonal, silhouette, winter, waddell, beach, state, park, big, basin, shore, line, stock
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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