Winter Light, San Luis Reservoir - a photo on Flickriver

Winter Light, San Luis Reservoir

            Winter Light, San Luis Reservoir. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

High clouds, fog, and brilliant light on a winter day over San Luis Reservoir, California.

Because it lies between the southern San Francisco Bay Area and California’s Great Central Valley — and on the route to many interesting places ranging from the Sierra to Southern California and Death Valley — I have driven past the San Luis Reservoir probably hundreds of times over the years. (I’m old enough to barely recall the area before there was a reservoir, from trips when I was a young child.) Being just another part of the system to transport water in the state, I hardly think of it as one of California’s great scenic wonders.

But in the right conditions and the right light, it becomes difficult to ignore it as a landscape subject. The reservoir is huge and it is surrounded on three sides by mountains. Because of the expansive scale, light can reflect off its surface in ways that mimic what I sometimes see along the Pacific Ocean coast. It also picks up the winter atmosphere, with its fogs and mists, from the Central Valley. And because the road runs more or less along its northern shore, all of this is frequently backlit, as in this photograph that I made in the middle of the day while returning from the Central Valley.

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.

Taken on: January 17, 2022

Tags:

high

clouds

light

beams

fog

mist

reflection

reservoir

water

san luis

dam

mountains

black and white

monochrome

landscape

nature

california

usa

north

america « less

Camera: Fujifilm X-Pro2, f/5.6, 1/8000 sec, 25.7mm (=39mm), ISO 200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Fujifilm X-Pro2
Lens:	XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR
Aperture:	f/5.6
Exposure Time:	1/8000 sec
Focal Length:	25.7mm (35mm equivalent: 39mm)
ISO:	200
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Center-weighted average
White Balance:	Auto
Sharpness:	Hard
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop 23.1 (Macintosh)
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