Category Archives: Photographs: Northern California

Photographs from Northern California

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Launch For Hire Building

July 14, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

The “Launch For Hire” building, docks, and Tomales Bay as remnants of morning fog drift above the water

I was in this area back in early February, attempting to make it out to Point Reyes by dawn – but various things delayed me, including distractions along the way, and I ended up along the shoreline of Tomales Bay at sunrise. The bay is long and thin and seems quite peaceful, but Californians often remember that it is there because it is the junction between the continental plate and the Pacific plate, otherwise known as the San Andreas earthquake fault. The land I stood on to make this photograph is gradually heading northward and out to sea relative to the more distant land across the bay in the upper part of the frame. Periodically, this must briefly be a distinctly non-peaceful place when that fault lets go!

But on this morning it was quiet. The winter season and cold (literally freezing) temperatures ensured that few other people were there yet, though visitors to Point Reyes National Seashore come all year long and would begin to arrive a bit later in the morning. The light was a study in contrasts. To my right from the camera position was the morning sun, barely rising above the Marin hills and shining from behind some thin and clearing fog. I also made some photographs in that direction and you would hardly guess they were shot from the same place at the same time, since the backlit atmosphere was so bright and luminous than only silhouettes appear. But in this direction only a bit of that fog is seen, in a thin layer just above the water near the far hills, and the foreground is completely clear. There is a group of these piers here, and they extend a good distance into the shallow waters of the bay. I cannot tell what, if anything, the building whose full sign reads “Launch for Hire” is used for today, though its form and the reflections underneath seemed like a good subject for a photograph.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Ross’s Geese, Late November Fly-In

July 12, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Ross’s geese settling in for the night at last sunset light, San Joaquin Valley, California.

Now that I have finally (it was about time!) discovered the migratory bird populations in the Central Valley of California, I’ve become addicted to photographing them. Among my favorites are the huge flocks of Ross’s geese that can appear at times in certain places out there, and which are most active during the morning “fly out” and the evening” fly in” periods.

This was my first “wild goose chase” of the current season, and I had arrived very early that morning… to find thick tule fog obscuring the views of the birds. Early in the morning, I could hear them but barely see them at all, with the exception of one flock settled in close enough to the access road that I could barely make out a few of them in the murk. As things cleared a bit in the morning I could confirm that there were decent numbers of these birds about, but they seemed to be settled in on water that was inaccessible to me for photography. I photographed some other subjects, and eventually moved on to check out some other areas. Late in the day, I realized that I probably had time to swing back through the refuge for about an hour in the evening. When I arrived I found a few birds in the same inaccessible location where I had seen them in the morning, but I also was able to see some flocks passing by and even circling over along the far corner of the area. With this in mind, I began to work my way over there, and was rewarded with a good-sized flock that had settled into a grassy area not too far from the access road. As these geese will do, from time to time they spontaneously all rose into the air and the giant, thick flock circled for a few minutes before settling back in more or less where they were before. I photographed these against the dusk sky about the Coast Range as the last of them came back to rejoin the group on the ground.

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

Geese, Sunset Clouds

July 7, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of geese passes above sunset-lit clouds over northern California

I made this photograph on what turned out to be, no surprise to me, my last migratory bird photography day of this season. (And a productive season it was!) In April the climate begins to shift strongly toward spring conditions in California and in this drought year that meant that not only did it warm up, but places that might otherwise remain wet were already drying out. I started the day at a wildlife refuge where I frequently photograph the birds, especially Ross’s Geese, and was fortunate to begin the day with some classic light Central Valley fog that gradually cleared as the morning wore on. After shooting for a few hours I came to that midday time when migratory bird photography isn’t as great as it is at the edges of the day – a time when one might think about how to kill the next few hours until the light again becomes conducive to photography. I spontaneously decided to not spend it waiting here but to instead drive a good distance north to another place I’ve photographed in the past but which I hadn’t visited this season.

I took my time on this long drive. The route itself requires more than an hour of driving, but a few side excursions added considerably to that. I pulled off the highway to investigate one small town that I hadn’t been through before, and I drive a ways up a side road that crosses the Diablo Range heading west, finding the green spring grasses and some early wildflowers. Back on the main highway, I continued north to an areas where I have photographed cranes and other birds in the past, but in this dry year all of the water was gone and agriculture work seemed to already be underway. I decided to try another wildlife reserve that isn’t far away, and it turned out to still be relatively wet – but the large flocks of birds that I could count on back where I started my day seemed to not be here. I continued my search, eventually spotting the tell-tale white “cloud” that could only mean that a flock of geese was busy in a field a ways to the north, so I quickly drove over there to find a very large flock of snow geese, which I don’t generally see further south. After sunset, this flock of geese flew high overhead in the waning twilight.

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

Goose-filled Morning Sky

July 5, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Thousands of Ross’s Geese fill the hazy dawn sky above the San Joaquin Valley, California

This is a simple photograph of a morning sky almost completely filled with Ross’s geese. We had arrived here in thick fog a couple of hours earlier, first photographing cranes and a few other birds in the murky atmospheric conditions, relieved a bit by some slight clearing right about the time that the sun rose. Two big moments on any goose-photographing day are during the morning “fly out” and the evening “fly in” when thousands of the birds can suddenly take to the air at once in tremendous flocks that may begin with tightly packed geese and then evolve into a wider dispersion of the birds as they circle. Sometimes you can be surprised by one of the compact groups rising up at a distance that seems too far away to be photographable, but then they rise and spread out to cover the sky and begin to reach your own location.

This flock did more or less that. They first took to the air a good distance away near a group of large cottonwood trees. I recall thinking something like, “Too far away for my lenses” as the group first became airborne. Then they began to circle and spread and, yes, before long the edge of the flock was over my position. By this time the original cloud of birds had become, in some ways, more orderly. For example, they were mostly flying at about the same height above the ground – if you had been at their height you might have looked edgewise across a plane-like “surface” of flying birds. And although it may be difficult to see in this small version of the photograph, as the geese turned in various directions, portions of the flock would change color – notice the geese near the top of the frame that are lighter because their bodies are turned to the east and the morning sun, while in the middle of the frame the bird are turned in a different direction and their bodies are almost black.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Northern California

Launch For Hire Building

Ross’s Geese, Late November Fly-In

Geese, Sunset Clouds

Goose-filled Morning Sky

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