Category Archives: Photographs: Nature

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Cranes, Woodland Haze

January 19, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

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.

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Geese and Sky

January 18, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two geese take flight into winter sky

There is something primal about being among these migratory birds, at least if you stop to ponder. They come to my part of the world every winter, settling in to wetland areas in California. But the opposite end of their remarkable migration is along the arctic shorelines of northern Canada, an annual migration that is astonishing to imagine. (Wikipedia tells me that the majority of the world’s Ross’s geese nest in the arctic tundra of the Queen Maud Gulf Migratory Bird Sanctuary.) To spend time with them is to become open to a world that is not the human world, one in which we are temporary visitors and in which they are the permanent residents.

Getting close to such birds requires a lot of patience and persistence. The first problem is managing to be in the places they frequent when they are actually there, and these could be almost anywhere. I’ve gone to such places only to find no geese or, perhaps more frustrating, spot a cloud of thousands of geese in the air a mile or more in the distance and at a location I can’t go to. Once you do find them, you can only get so close and then you must wait for them to come to you — either as the flock moves across the land or as they fly. Sometimes, with luck and a bit of prediction, you find yourself quite close, at which point you move slowly and quietly and hope to sustain the experience. On this afternoon a flock settled onto a levee across which my route travelled. I moved slowly into a close position and then waited, occasionally moving just a bit closer if it seemed that the flock wasn’t alerted by my presence. I made many photographs of them on the ground, and then — as always happens — they began to depart, suddenly lifting into the air in groups.

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Tree, Winter Light

January 16, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A bare winter tree and clearing tule fog.

On Sunday there was ground fog all over the San Francisco Bay Area, and I had a few free hours, so I headed out to see what I could find. I went to a place that is very familiar to me, a local haunt where I have hiked and photographed for decades. I had not been there in perhaps a year, so it was good to reestablish my relationship with the location and note a few changes. The little trip also reminded me that it isn’t necessary to travel long distances to find photographic subjects — quite often a closer look at nearby places will reveal worthy subjects.

The idea here was to arrive before the fog cleared, photograph in the thick fog for a while, and then be ready to photograph the brief transition period as it thinned, a time when brilliant and stunning but ephemeral light may appear. During my short drive to this location the fog remained thick, but just before reaching my destination it began to clear, likely because ground fog doesn’t stick around as long in the hills. As I parked and loaded up a light load (my lightweight trail photography setup) there were still some pockets of fog clinging to the hillsides, but in most places there was instead a sort of haze that glowed when I photographed in the direction of the sun. I’m very fond of this kind of light, so I quickly looked for subjects that I could use to advantage, and I soon found this tree standing on a grassy hillside and silhouetted against the glowing atmosphere beyond.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Geese Take Flight

January 14, 2018 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Ross’s geese take flight into California winter sky

I have learned a lot from photographing birds — a lot about my own interests, a lot about the mechanics of photography, a lot about developing instincts, a lot about the birds, and a lot about what I/we can and cannot control in the making of photographs. The relative contributions of things including skill, persistence, equipment, vision, knowledge, and luck is a subject of much interest and something that I’m still working out. Clearly a photograph of a goose, filling the frame as it rises abruptly into the sky, does require some skill and some equipment. (I think vision is important, too, though it is hard to have a conscious vision in the fractions of a second during which such things occur.) Just as clearly, there are many things in such a photograph that the photographer cannot control, and plain old luck is very much an important elements. Over all of this is the need to be there a lot, since skill and vision and opportunity are all increased by practice.

I photograph this subject fairly often, traveling to areas where such subjects are found every winter. Sometimes nothing much happens — the light is poor, the birds are somewhere else, I’m looking in the wrong direction. But the more I’m in the field the more likely that I’ll encounter a situation that is special and the more likely I’ll be ready to do something useful with it. This was one of those lucky moments. In a place where the birds are all too often at a distance, I found them settled in nearby. I remained in my vehicle, with the camera on my lap, as I crept up very, very slowly. (At times I might have moved only a few inches in a minute.) Any time I sensed the birds going on alert I simply paused and waited. Eventually I was closer to them than I have ever gotten before in the wild, and they took less and less apparent notice of my presence. As always happens, eventually the flock took off, mere feet from my position, and I was able to make a few quick photographs of the event from a very close perspective.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Nature

Cranes, Woodland Haze

Geese and Sky

Tree, Winter Light

Geese Take Flight

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.