Cranes, Woodland Haze. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A flock of sandhill cranes flies above fields and woodland.
Yesterday I managed to make it out the valley with the main goal of visiting the reception for “Valley Focus: On Photography,” a wonderful exhibit at the Carnegie Arts Center in Turlock. (Note: Those of us in the San Francisco Bay Area, spoiled by the proximity of a lot of really top-notch art, sometimes forget that there is “good stuff” elsewhere in the state. The Carnegie Center is a fine example.) It is about a two-hour drive out there from my home, and I was thinking that I could leave in the mid-afternoon and make it in time for the 5:00 PM reception… until I was reminded of something I should have been thinking of, the monumentally awful commute traffic along my intended route between the Bay Area and the Central Valley. So I left early, with a plan to visit some wild areas I have wanted to look at for some time.
It rained, sometimes hard, during the first part of the drive, but as I dropped down into the great valley it was clear that I had gotten ahead of the weather front — clouds behind me, broken clouds and blue sky ahead, and glowing light coming over the mountains to the west. I headed south and then east, finally locating a somewhat out-of-the-way spot where there was access to bird viewing. It wasn’t the ideal place to watch the birds, but there were some wonderful woodlands off to the west along a river. I made this photograph from a slightly elevated position, looking toward those trees as a flock of sandhill cranes arrived and then landed nearby.
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 and Amazon.
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