Tag Archives: water

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

Richardson Bay and Tiburon, San Francisco Bay Morning Haze

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Richardson Bay and Tiburon, San Francisco Bay Morning Haze
Richardson Bay and Tiburon, San Francisco Bay Morning Haze

Richardson Bay and Tiburon, San Francisco Bay Morning Haze. Marin, California. February 12, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The San Francisco Bay and the haze covered East Bay beyond the waters of Richardson Bay.

When I headed over the Golden Gate on this early February winter morning I intended to end up photographing redwoods or along the coast north of San Francisco in the morning before heading south to go back home by midday. I ended up getting distracted by very interesting shooting conditions in the Marin Headlands of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and by the time I finished there I didn’t have enough remaining time to carry through on my original plans. But I did have a little time left, so I headed up to this spot along a ridge above Marin City where I know of a great view out over Richardson Bay, the Tiburon Peninsula, Angel Island, the Bay, past fog-shrouded Oakland, and on to the East Bay Hills.

This is a long lens landscape shot, for several reasons. First, the somewhat longer lens – though 159mm isn’t all that long – compresses distance a bit, both bringing Oakland’s downtown buildings a bit “closer” and foreshortening the very large distances a bit. It also lets me “edit” out some potentially distracting elements close to my shooting position and limit the scope of the image to just those elements that I wanted to include.

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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: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, Morning

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North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, Morning
North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, Morning

North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, Morning. San Francisco, California. February 5, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, with San Francisco Bay, the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge, a departing ship, and the East Bay hills beyond in morning fog and haze.

I’ve been working on the color version of this photograph, which proved to be a bit more tricky than I would have expected. My recollection of the light on this morning was that it was very bright – with the backlit haze/fog – and quite blue. But, as often happens, the coloration in the camera was dissonant with my memory, and I had to think a bit about where I wanted to go with the photography in post. In particular, the sky had an odd pink cast that can often become more obvious when using a long lens and only keeping a bit of the sky right above the horizon.

The background on this photograph (and several others in the same series) is that it was made on an early February morning shortly after sunrise from a point high in the Marin Headlands of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. For the most part it was actually a brilliantly sunny and clear morning, but an inversion layer was creating a thin blanket of fog/haze that was almost too bright to look at and which muted the details of the landscape. (It was also tremendously windy – making it a challenge to shoot with a long lens!) After making a few initial exposures from a more obvious location – and one that was slightly out of the wind – I decided to wander a bit and look for juxtapositions of various landscape elements with the shape of the north tower of the bridge. After a short walk I found this spot where the tower was centered between the two towers of the more distant western span of the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge, and where the view included a bit of the San Francisco waterfront along the right margin and the fog-covered flatlands below the East Bay hills.

As I worked I noticed a freighter leaving the Port of Oakland beyond the further bridge. I’ve watched enough of these ships heading across the bay that I have a pretty good idea of the path they follow, and I knew that this one would cross beneath the Bay Bridge and then turn to cross the frame towards the left – so I waited for it to reach the position just barely to the left of the closer bridge tower before making this exposure.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | 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: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge

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North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge
North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge

North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge. San Francisco, California. February 5, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge silhouetted against San Francisco Bay morning haze and the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge.

A week ago I posted a few other photographs from this early morning winter visit to the upper reaches of the Marin Headlands, from which I photographed the bridges of the San Francisco Bay, backlit by early sun and partially obscured by a low layer of fog and haze. Since I am not fond of adding poetic (or pseudo-poetic) titles to my photographs, preferring to let them say whatever they have to say on their own, I have resisted the temptation to call this one “The Three Towers.” ;-)

The dark shape in the foreground that dominates the frame is, of course, the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. Shooting it in this light is trickier than it might seem like it should be. The light coming from beyond, reflected and amplified by water and haze, is very bright – almost hard to look at directly. So the west side of the bridge is deeply shadowed. I like the dark and stark shape of the tower here – as opposed to the more familiar photographs front or side lit by late afternoon or evening light – but the trick is to keep just a bit of detail in that nearly black tower.

The scene posed another technical issue, though it probably isn’t visible in this small version. As the sun comes up and heats the atmosphere, and as wind blows (and it was windy on this morning!) there is a lot of atmospheric turbulence. Normally you wouldn’t notice this at all, but when you shoot with a long lens and enlarge the image you quickly see that sharp edges and fine lines take on an almost “painterly” quality as the atmosphere shimmers, much in the manner of a mirage.

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

Cascade, Reflected Sunlight

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Cascade, Reflected Sunlight
Cascade, Reflected Sunlight

Cascade, Reflected Sunlight. Yosemite National Park, California. June 28, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sunlight reflects on granite ledges next to cascades on Tenaya Creek.

In this iteration of the “blurry-fast-moving-water-in-Sierra-creek” photograph, I was looking to cram a variety of elements into the frame – as you can see, the entire photograph is not filled with water. There is a transition from white water with flashes of sunlit light at the tops of the waves, through the water with smaller areas of foam, to water reflecting the golden late afternoon light from a cliff face on the other side of the creek, to some bits of streamside granite slabs along the lower right edge of the frame. To me, these areas of shallow water and wet rock reflecting more distant light almost have a molten quality.

One of the trickiest things about this photograph for me was dealing with the strong contrast between very blue tones in the shaded parts of the water and the very warm tones of the reflections. As every photographer knows, the light in shade can be very blue, especially when the subject is supposed to be white and is lit almost entirely by the blue sky, as is the case in parts of the turbulent water. Adjustments are necessary in order to make it look realistic and conform with the colors that our eyes tell are are there. (Our vision system is remarkable… but it is not objectively accurate!) But adjustments to the blue water, if applied to the warm tones of the reflecting granite, can end up looking bizarre and overdone in the opposite direction!

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | 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.