Central Valley Morning Sky

Central Valley Morning Sky
Clouds above wetland ponds on winter morning in Caifornia’s Central Valley.

Central Valley Morning Sky. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Clouds above wetland ponds on winter morning in Californai’s Cetmral Valley.

California’s Central Valley is a complicated place. If you drive through the impressions are largely of traffic, lots of huge trucks, endless fields, and seemingly nondescript cities and towns. In the winter the air can be awful when inversions put a lid on it for days or weeks at a time. But on the right days and at the right times on those days there is a lot of beauty out there, too — and the immense sky is a good part of that.

This was one of the very first photographs I made in 2023. It was early on New Year’s Day, and I had probably shot a handful of attempts at bird photographs before we arrived at this spot. From here the view to the northeast was clear, clouds from a departing storm still clustered around the Sierra, and early morning sunlight colored the clouds directly overhead.


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.

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