Category Archives: Commentary

Commentary, Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Wetlands, Dawn Light and Fog

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Wetlands, Dawn Light and Fog
Shallow fog diffuses the morning light in Central Valley wetlands.

Happy New Year’s Day 2024! When this post appears on January 1, I’ll be in the field to greet the literal dawn of the new year with friends, fellow photographers, and few thousand migratory birds. With luck, it may be a morning like the one in the photograph, with beautiful soft light, a bit of fog, sunrise colors, and lots of wildlife all around. I hope that your new year begins as well!

This photograph comes from dawn on a December morning when I visited wetlands. My main goal was to photograph birds, but somehow I almost always end up photographing landscapes in such places. I arrived to some of my favorite conditions: the glow of pre-dawn light, thick fog, chilly air, and the sound of thousands of birds all around me.

Note: I’m starting the new year with a few changes at my website, including the new, simplified format for posted photographs and streamlined text. Since this is something of an experiment, don’t be surprised if I continue to make changes for a while.

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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Commentary

Black Oaks, Smoke

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Black Oaks, Smoke
Smoke from a management fire surrounds autumn black oak trees in Yosemite Valley.

Black Oaks, Smoke. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Smoke from a management fire surrounds autumn black oak trees in Yosemite Valley.

Smoke drifted in and out as I photographed trees in this meadow. The light changed as beams passed through a gap in the ridge and moved across the landscape. I moved from position to position, trying to keep up with the unfolding scene. Landscape photography can be less of the sedate and quietly thoughtful experience than some assume. We work with the conditions we are given, and sometimes they are quite dynamic. Recently I shared another photograph of this same group of trees, made at almost the same time. Even disregarding the slightly different compositions, a comparison shows how much the light and haze changed between the two exposures.

How we regard fire in a place like this is a complex subject, especially for those of us who were brought up during the decades when Smoky the Bear told us that the only good fire is no fire at all. It turns out that Smoky was wrong, and too much fire suppression allowed extremely flammable undergrowth and detritus to build up, and when fire did inevitably arrive it consumed forests whole, utterly destroying them in many cases. New, enlightened policies recognize that fire is a natural part of forest ecology, and that it keeps the forest healthy. The smoke in this photograph comes from a managed fire, designed to clear out the built-up undergrowth. Yet, while I know this is a good thing, I can’t say that I enjoy working in the smoke!

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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Commentary

Terraced Aspen Grove

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Terraced aspen groves rise toward rocky slopes in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Terraced Aspen Grove. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Terraced aspen groves rise toward rocky slopes in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

This aspen photograph is as much about timing as anything else — OK, it is about the trees, too. While subject choice is certainly important, picking the right light and the time of day to find it seems equally important. Because I knew that this place would remain in shadow much later in the morning, I had it on my list to visit after photographing a different subject earlier that day.

The colors of these trees seem more interesting to me when the light is a bit subdued, so I planned to arrive here perhaps a half hour or more before the sun topped a ridge behind the grove and turned up the contrast. I found a spot with a clear view across the valley and tightly framed the trees, mostly filling the frame with them but leaving just a bit of the background slopes visible at the top.

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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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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Commentary

Resistenza

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Resistenza
A weathered poster, with another small poster on top of it, on a wall in Bologna, Italy.

Resistenza. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

A weathered poster, with another small poster on top of it, on a wall in Bologna, Italy.

Today I interrupt the nearly-continuous stream of fall color photographs to insert another from our 2023 summer travels through Europe. This one comes from Bologna, where there is a lot of “street art” and graffiti, to put it mildly. It ranges from crude text scrawling to some quite fascinating work. This isn’t precisely street art, as it began life as a poster of some sort… but if you look closely you’ll see that there are layers here.

The poster was glued to a wall and surrounded by a frame — unlike real street art which rarely would be present that way. But do note the thin band of typically-colored Bologna wall around the central element, and note that already another small poster had been layered on top of it and that it has been defaced in some subtle ways.

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.

Blog | About | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.