Central Valley Sky, Winter. Great Central Valley, California. January 23, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Thin winter clouds drift above farmland, Central Valley, California.
Photographing these beautiful winter clouds above the California Central Valley near the Cosumnes River between Stockton and Sacramento involved a certain amount of luck. For the most part it had been an extremely foggy morning – so foggy that at a few points early in the day I simply couldn’t find anything to shoot. Eventually the light began to filter down through the tule fog and I had some good luck shooting further up the valley at the Cosumnes River Wildlife Preserve.
At a certain point as the fog begins to thin it goes through a phase that is not so photographically compelling. The very thick fog can be quite interesting, and the light can be very special just as the sun starts to force its way through the fog as it starts to clear. But they there is a period when it is sort of sunny and sort of foggy, and but perhaps lacks the best aspects of each of the two conditions. That is how it was at about the time I left the Preserve and started back down the valley on my drive home.
Much earlier in the morning I had visited this side road near a bend in the Cosumnes River, so I decided to try it again since it was only slightly out of my way on the return drive. I drove slowly all the way to the end of the side road – to where it runs into the levee at the river – and then turned around to start back. I saw lots and lots of waterfowl, including impressive sandhill cranes and beautiful white egrets, but they were all too far from the road or in areas that didn’t provide the right kind of background. Near these flooded fields I stopped to consider trying to photograph some of the birds, changed my mind, and instead decided to see what I could do with these buildings, the flooded fields, and the sky. It was my luck that this final stop coincided with the near clearing of the fog and the appearance overhead of these wonderful clouds.
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I lived in the south Bay Area since 1960 and moved to the central valley three years ago, so I am very interested in your photos of the area. Such a move is a photographic shock and I am gradually finding interesting subjects to photograph. I like what you are doing.
Todd, I can only imagine the change that this must be from living near the ocean and the redwoods and the oak/grasslands!
However, it seems to me that there are actually a ton of interesting things to photograph in the Great Valley. Certainly in winter the wildlife potential is very great, and the foggy conditions can produce some very wonderful and moody images. The oak trees make wonderful subjects, and I also find the vast sky and the agricultural land and culture to be fascinating. And then there are the Sierra foothills – a literal and figurative gold mine of opportunities, I think! :-)
Dan
Ah, spoken like a real photographer, Ben! Darn clouds kept moving though… ;-)
Dan
I’m posting this here also, in fact it probably belongs here more than over at FaceBook.
The more I look at this photo the more I like it. If I were there with you shooting this subject, my “auto brain checklist (Golden Section)” would have made me move a little to the left forcing the top of the silo to better merge with that small bright circular cloud just to the right of it. :-)
Ben