Five Birds, Marsh. San Joaquin Valley, California. January 21, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Five birds take flight above a foggy marsh
I’ll be honest and admit that this photograph emerged from a group of exposures that resulted from operator error! While dealing with some complicated and varying exposure issues that I won’t explain here, I switched from photographing one sort of subject to photographing another… but left the settings for the former in place as I shot the latter. My first thought when I went through my files initially was that every one of these exposures would likely deserve to be deleted. But because I’ve been working with motion blur, longer exposures, camera motion, and so forth recently, I figured I might as well take a look and see what I could do with the images.
Essentially, I ended up using a shutter speed that was much lower than I intended and overexposing, creating very high key images. For these reasons and because I was panning to track the small group of birds, almost all distinct detail is gone from the scene with the exception of the birds. The tule-covered islands in the marsh above which the birds are flying barely hold their shape – enough, I think, to imply what they are but certainly not enough to provide any real detail.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | 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.