A Photograph Exposed: “Two Islands, Fog”

(“A Photograph Exposed” is a series exploring some of my photographs in greater detail.)

Two Islands, Fog
Two Islands, Fog

Two Islands, Fog. San Joaquin Valley, California© November 27, 2012. Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

This simple-looking photograph represents a number of things that are important to me and to my photography — so I think it may be worth adding to the “A Photograph Exposed” series.

I made the photograph on a late-autumn day in California’s Great Central Valley, on a day that felt more like winter than like fall. We were there on one of the first trips of the season to photograph migratory birds in the Valley — geese, pelicans, herons, ibises, cranes, and more. In a typical autumn/winter season this is a place of fog, ponds, and amazing collections of migratory birds. On this morning it seemed to be mainly about the fog!

On a typical visit we head out hours before dawn, arriving at our photography location before dawn but just after the sky begins to lighten. Especially on these early season trips the sound of the birds amazes us when we first hear it — a wild cacophony that eventually resolves into separate species. Bird photography on a morning of dense tule fog is a challenge. Birds in flight suddenly appear through the fog and are gone within seconds. Sometimes it is possible to spot birds on the ground or in the water through the murk. But sometimes we simply watch and wait or perhaps look around a bit, hoping that the fog will thin.

I recall that we were driving very slowly along a levee road with ponds on both sides, windows open so that we could hear and see what was around us. I think I recall seeing these two islands and then stopping, though we might have stopped for some other reason and I was already out of the car. In any case, this is a spot that I had passed many times previously, and it was not one that had inspired me photographically. Without the fog, it is a flat marsh with grass growing out of it, and there are more dramatic landscapes elsewhere in the area.

But with this fog everything changed. The depth of view was extremely limited, and much complex landscape beyond the islands simply disappeared. The light above the shallow but dense tule fog illuminated it from behind and made it glow. The forms of the two islands closely mirrored one another, although with different tonalities, and each island mirrored itself in the water. The overall effect is very simple — in fact this is one of my minimalist landscapes — but it seems to be compelling, to me and to others who have seen it.

Minimalist landscapes form one thread in my photography, and some of my favorite landscape photographs are minimalist or nearly so. This photograph also explores something else that fascinates me — backlit atmosphere that becomes so luminous that you can almost not look directly into it.

Viewers sometimes wonder what a photograph means or what it is about. I can say a bit about that, as I have done above, but in the end what it means to me may well be different from what it means to other viewers. In some ways, the photographer is the person least able to see that photograph as others see it, since he/she knows its intent, associates with the full experience of being there to make it, and probably has intentions for it that can’t be easily described. When I look at it I enjoy it as a visual object and composition, as  reminder of a specific place and time, and it has a feeling of deep stillness and quiet.

The Photograph Exposed series:


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | FacebookGoogle+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email


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