Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Dawn Clouds, Sacramento Valley

January 9, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dawn clouds above the winter landscape of the Sacramento Valley

I have been meaning to visit some new locations for California Central Valley winter photography of migratory birds and of this huge place. I love my familiar stomping grounds in an area closer to where I live, but I keep hearing reports of locations further north along the Pacific Flyway. I decided that this is the winter to begin that wider exploration. Some of the locations I have in mind are far enough away that they will require overnight stays, but this one is (just barely!) within range for a day trip. A very long day trip.

Up many (almost four) hours before dawn, I quickly filled a thermos with coffee, made a sandwich, grabbed quick breakfast, loaded the car, and hit the road. I drove east and north out of the San Francisco Bay Area in darkness, and eventually was heading north up the Sacramento Valley on I-5, still in the dark. I had in mind an area a good distance up the Valley where there are many wildlife refuges and lots of water… and, as a result, the potential to find lots of migratory birds. It is a bit of an adventure trying to locate some of the reserves in the dark, particularly if you haven’t been to them before, but I found the first one as the sky was beginning to lighten and I drove before dawn. At this point the next morning ritual is always to stop the car, put on the warm clothes, unload the camera gear, and get everything set up. I headed out into the grounds of the refuge just as the first light was hitting the precursor clouds of an incoming Pacific weather system high above the valley, and this is literally my first photograph of the day.

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Before Dawn, Wetlands

January 8, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pre-dawn clouds and misty light above the Sierra and San Joaquin Valley wetlands

This photograph comes from one of my first trips of this season to photograph migratory birds in California’s Great Central Valley, an endeavor that has come to fascinate me more and more over the past few years. Somewhere in the post-Thanksgiving time frame I become aware that the birds have begun to return, and I soon find time to be out there on beautiful, cold, and often foggy days to photograph them and the winter landscape.

On this season’s first trip I arrived, as I always do, before dawn. The range of possible conditions out here is quite large, and I might find anything from dense fog to rain to perfectly clear skies. This morning brought some high clouds, especially to the east over the Sierra crest, and some scattered pockets of fog. At first the cloudiness made me wonder if there would even be much of a sunrise, but as the light began to appear the sky above the clouds became a bit more

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Manhattan Sidewalk Scene

January 7, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pedestrians on a Manhattan sidewalk on a cloudy winter morning.

This is one of those street photographs that I probably can’t fully explain to viewers. I’ll try, but it simply may or may not work for you — and it certainly is, at least superficially, not much like my landscape photography. Or is it? When I’m out and about in an urban area, sometimes I start to look beyond the general hubbub of the scene and I began to spot elements that I find fascinating: a particular person, a relationship of colors, light in unexpected places, juxtapositions of people doing things that may be related or unrelated, and transitory moments that are gone as quickly as they appear.

When I’m in this mode of seeing I often stop and watch the scene, waiting for something to happen. I don’t know in advance quite what it will be, but I know that the potential is there. (This, in fact, is one similarity to photographing the natural world, where more things than you might imagine are the result of simply being there at the right time and watching.) Here something about the front of this building caught my attention, and there was a steady stream of people passing by. (Of course there was — this is Manhattan!) At the moment of this exposure a bunch of things happened — somehow there are two strollers in the scene. Several people are engrossed by their smartphones. The woman at the far right is in a surprising and somewhat contorted position, and everything seems to have stopped in some sort of tableau.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

8 AV and Jane St

January 6, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A winter evening at the corner of 8th Avenue and Jane Street, Manhattan

Continuing my photographic bipolar swings between the natural world and the human world, here is another street photograph. It ties in with a couple of things that I’ve been thinking about recently in my street photography. First, it is an example of night street photography, shot handheld in near darkness using a small camera and high ISO. A year and a half ago I suddenly realized that this kind of photography had become a realistic possibility with the newer high ISO cameras. As a person who has long done long-exposure night photography from the tripod, this was truly a revelation. Secondly, I’m crazy about photographing lighted buildings, stores, restaurants and the light that spills from them onto the sidewalk, street, and anyone who happens to be passing by.

Aside from the general way that I’m always on the lookout for such things, this photograph was almost an accident. We had spent the afternoon at the new Whitney Museum. Those who know me have come to understand my predilection for spending way too much time going way too slowly through museums, and those people eventually give up and move on to other things, leaving me to continue ambling past the art. On this visit some of the people I was with had more or less “done” the Whitney in about and hour and a half — at which point I had more or less finished one floor of the place! We decided that they would all go ahead and find a place to eat and drink, and they ended up at a little tavern across the street from this photograph. I showed up hours later and joined them for food and beer, and we finally left the place after dark. As soon as I walked outside I saw this building across the street.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Dawn Clouds, Sacramento Valley

Before Dawn, Wetlands

Manhattan Sidewalk Scene

8 AV and Jane St

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