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

Black and White, Cranes and Geese

February 25, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Masses of sandhill cranes and Ross’s geese take to the air in foggy winter skies about the San Joaquin Valley

A few years ago I may a photograph in the Skagit Valley of Washington that I described as a “snow goose maelstrom” — a scene utterly packed with those geese in flight. The scene we arrived to on this winter morning in the San Joaquin Valley was also such a maelstrom, except there were even more kinds of birds. While the description of this photograph refers to “sandhill cranes and Ross’s geese,” there are other birds here, too. In fact, it isn’t hard to spot a couple of white-fronted geese, and I know there were egrets lurking in this mass of birds, too. Who knows… it is even possible that a few snow geese might have shown up.

We arrived to a favorite kind of atmospheric condition. There was very dense tule fog — so dense that you can see the more distant airborne birds in the photo almost disappear behind its veil. But the fog was shallow and beginning to thin, and the sun was making it glow with intense brightness. I describe this effect as the fog glowing so brightly that it can almost be hard to look directly into it. I chose to go with a relatively high key interpretation of this scene to evoke that feeling. At the moment that I made the photograph, something had disturbed the flock and the various kinds of birds on the ground were beginning to lift into the sky to join those that were already airborne.

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

Cranes and Geese, Fog

February 24, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sandhill cranes and Ross’s geese on the ground and in the air on a foggy winter morning.

This visit to the San Joaquin Valley birds was almost a sort of accident. We were on our way to Yosemite for a couple of days for the opening reception for an exhibit in Oakhurst, and as we headed west from the Bay Area we thought we might just make a detour to one of our favorite spots. Initially it didn’t look too promising — we got on the road later than usual, once in the Valley it looked like it was going to be a “blah” fair weather day. But I had a hunch that there might still be some interesting fog out in this area, so we left the main road on our detour. Sure enough, before long we encountered tule fog, and the refuge we visited was still pretty socked in when we arrived.

We didn’t know what we might find, so we were very excited to find very large and active flocks of Ross’s geese and sandhill cranes in an area close to observations locations. We quickly grabbed camera gear and headed to a spot where we could see them… and we got one of the best bird and light shows of the year so far. The white geese and the darker cranes were mixing together, almost as a single flock. There was action everywhere as birds left, other birds arrived, and still more wheeled overhead. The noise was incredible, and there were periodic excited lift-offs. Shortly after we got there the fog began to thin, and the light went from uniform gray to bands of softly glowing sunlight. Here the birds on the ground stretch off into the fog to the point where they are no longer visible, and overhead hundreds more birds were in flight, and they also disappeared into the thick fog.

Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Urban/Street

Umbrellas and Fog

February 23, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

This is a photograph from about five years ago when we made a winter trip to Southern California and ended up spending a day at the Getty Center. Since the time our oldest son went to UCLA I have been a fan of the Center, at least as much for the architecture and the grounds as for the art displays. (The art is wonderful, too, and they have a special focus on photography that often takes me back there.)

This was just the sort of day when normal people might not want to visit the Getty: it was cold and rainy and eventually the rain mixed with fog. I had a wonderful time photographing the fog-obscured architectural landscape and made many photographs with people passing through it. In fact, I came back from this single day of shooting with a group of photographs I like a great deal. At this moment I happened to be in an upper courtyard in a place that overlooks the garden as groups of people carrying umbrellas approached the sharp bend in the walkway from both directions.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

News

Detached

February 22, 2015 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

No, not a feeling of detachment… a retinal detachment.

Some of you already know that I experienced a retinal detachment in my left eye late last week. To cut to the chase, the results of the medical procedure look good, and I’m very optimistic about the eventual outcome. Now that I’m recovering I thought I’d reply to all of the messages, questions, and support here in one place… and express gratitude for everyone’s concern and sympathy. Thank you!

So, what happened?

I’ve had the usual “floaters” in my eyes for a long time, so I didn’t pay much attention when I started seeing more of them in my left eye a while back — I figured it was just part of the typical process for aging eyes. However, late last week I noticed a dark “shadow” in the lower peripheral vision of my left eye, and it gradually expanded to become a significant dark area where I could not see. Since I helped my mother through an episode like this some years ago, I had a pretty good idea that I was experiencing a retinal detachment, and I got to the doctor fairly quickly.

Retinal detachment is not uncommon, especially when the vitreous in our eyes detaches as we age, sometimes creating small tears in the retina. Fluid can then get beneath the retina, pushing it up from the structures underneath and cutting off blood flow, and then “turning out the lights” in that portion of the eye.

The first ophthalmologist quickly confirmed what I suspected and referred me to a senior ophthalmologist — who, it turned out, was the same doctor who had treated my mother many years ago. His exam confirmed the bad news that I did have a retinal detachment, but against that background there was quite a bit of relatively good news: the detachment was in the periphery of my vision and not beneath the macula, there appeared to be only a single tear in the retina, the detachment was in the upper half of my eye (things that appear “low” in our vision are projected on the upper part of the retina), we had likely caught it quickly enough, and I don’t have risk factors such as diabetes or previous eye surgery. Continue reading Detached →

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Black and White, Cranes and Geese

Cranes and Geese, Fog

Umbrellas and Fog

Detached

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