Images

Sunset Light, Sea Stacks

Sunset Light, Sea Stacks
Sunset light on sea stacks off the coast of Crescent City, California.

Sunset Light, Sea Stacks. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sunset light on sea stacks off the coast of Crescent City, California.

We recently returned from a few days along California’s far northern coast. We spent a couple of nights in Crescent City before moving south to stay in the Eureka area for a couple more days. We were mostly there to photograph the redwoods, but there was a lot more to see and photograph than just that subject. (In fact, one of our primary targets, the annual rhododendron bloom, was not producing a lot of flowers during our visit.)

The coastal area in Crescent City is quite spectacular, from the ocean just below the road running along its edge to the distant view of the infamous St. George Reef lighthouse. I have photographed from the residential area at the end of town before, and since we were there in the evening we decided to head that way again on this evening. The light was beautiful and evolving nicely… but it was clear that the clouds of a weather front to the northwest would block the last light. So I quickly set up this photograph and made two exposures as the final direct light hit the coast.


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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Leaf Edges

Leaf Edges
Leaf edges with thorns in the shape of small waves.

Leaf Edges. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Leaf edges with thorns in the shape of small waves.

Few of us seem to be able to resist photographing thick leaves like these, particularly when they overlap in such graphically interesting ways, presenting a contrast between dark shadows and the bright spines on the edges of the leaves. I know I can’t resist, and almost any time I find myself in a garden I end up pointing the camera at such things, even when photography is not my primary reason for visiting.

My first instinct with a subject like this one is frequently to go straight to monochrome. I’m not sure if that is because I feel that removing color may focus attention on the graphical forms or simply because the earliest photographs in this genre that I saw were monochromatic. Here I went the opposite direction, keeping and even amping up the intensity of the colors a bit, warming the shadow light as well.


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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Nightmare Plant

Nightmare Plant
A colorful succulent plant covered with tooth-like thorns.

Nightmare Plant. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A colorful succulent plant covered with tooth-like thorns.

OK, maybe I took some liberty with the name of this plant. I actually do not know what it is. (I’ll gladly accept identification help.) I think I photographed it during a visit to a particular botanical garden, though the details probably are not important. What is important is that… I really don’t want to run into a gigantic version of this plant in the middle of a very dark night!

Photographing plants is not my main thing, but at times I do find them very interesting — whether just because they happen to be beautiful or because they possess a strangeness that we usually overlook. In many cases they present remarkable graphical subjects, full of textures, colors, angles and more. They also are almost everywhere — so if you are thinking, “I can’t get away to make photographs…” maybe you can just look around and find something close by.


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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Morning Fog, Rocks, and Surf

Morning Fog, Rocks, and Surf
The surf rolls in on a quiet, foggy morning along the coast north of Santa Cruz, California near Waddell Creek.

Morning Fog, Rocks, and Surf. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The surf rolls in on a quiet, foggy morning along the coast north of Santa Cruz, California near Waddell Creek.

As we begin to come to terms with the near-end of the Covid-19 crisis in my part of the world — the San Francisco Bay Area — it begins to seem more possible to simply get up, make decision about a destination, and head out for the day. (I do understand that I’m particularly fortunate to live in a place where vaccination rates are very high.) Probably the most likely subject on my “Hey, I’ll go photograph today!” list is the Pacific Ocean coastline, which I can reach as quickly as a bit more than a half hour.

Objectively speaking, there was nothing all that special or unusual about this May morning. The fog, typical at this time of year, blanketed the coast and slid inland to the tops of coastal hills. As I drove a section of the Pacific Coast Highway north of Santa Cruz the fog began to break up in spots, though few people were there to see it on this weekday morning. After I turned around and started back I passed by this spot and noticed the pile of rocks extending across the beach in front of the shallow bay filled with waves leading to distant sea stacks and bluffs.


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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | FacebookEmail

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.


All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.