Tag Archives: air

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Air and Water

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Air and Water
Signs in downtown San Francisco

Air and Water. San Francisco, California. August 14, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Signs in downtown San Francisco

This is an odd little corner along the edge of a downtown gas station near a freeway off-ramp in San Francisco, photographed early on a morning when some fog was still breaking up over this part of the City.

I suppose it is fair to ask what this photograph is “about.” (Though I often think that a photograph simply “is” rather than being “about.”) The soft yet directional light, slanting in from the right of the frame, is the first thing, but the mass and odd angles of the two towering build boards as another. Three is bit of work-play, too, with the text on some of the signs seeming either random or interesting or perhaps both. Whole words appear painted on the wall, though they make little sense absent the context of other missing words. A small sign announces, “Air and Water.”

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 and Amazon.
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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, Photographs: Wildlife

Cranes and Geese, Fog

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Cranes and Geese, Fog
Cranes and Geese, Fog

Cranes and Geese, Fog. San Joaquin Valley, California. February 13, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

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.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Departing Cranes

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Departing Cranes
Departing Cranes

Departing Cranes. San Joaquin Valley, California. February 14, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A row of sandhill cranes takes to the air and flies toward Ross’s Geese above the San Joaquin Valley

This group of sandhill cranes was part of a much larger group that I had been photographing for some time on this winter day. A very large flock of them had settled in on a shallow pond and nearby field, much closer than usual to the spot from which I was watching them. They stood around as a group, with some smaller sub-groups occasionally breaking off to wander around a bit, and I watched them and made photographs as they assembled themselves in various configurations against backgrounds of water, pasture, trees, and sky.

Then they began to leave. Without any warning that I could perceive, small groups of a half-dozen or so would suddenly lift into the air and head off purposefully while those left behind seemed unaffected by their departure. A few minutes later another group would repeat the process. Eventually there were only a few left and I moved to where I could photograph them. A few more take-offs and this was the only group remaining, and when it left I quickly made a photograph of this line of cranes heading away toward evening sky, trees, and a large flock of Ross’s geese.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Geese in Flight, Dusk

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Geese in Flight, Dusk
Geese in Flight, Dusk

Geese in Flight, Dusk. San Joaquin Valley, California. December 13, 2103. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A flock of geese takes to the air at dusk, San Joaquin Valley

After nearly a week in the dry and desiccated (and cold!) terrain of Death Valley National Park, I decided to break up my homeward drive with an evening stop in California’s San Joaquin Valley to photograph migratory birds. It is hard to imagine two places that are more different. Death Valley is mostly hard edged, dry, with only the hardiest vegetation, and a place of scarce wildlife. The San Joaquin is largely farmland, albeit due to irrigation, and where I went there is a lot of water and many thousands of birds. It was quite a contrast with where I had been and a sort of “welcome home” to a world that I am more accustomed to.

I arrived perhaps an hour before sunset, after a long drive that had begun early in the morning on the far side of the Sierra – and with a couple of hours of driving still to do. I drove across narrow farmland roads to get to the refuge, where I stopped and sat for a few moments before switching into “wildlife photographer mode.” As I had approached the place I had spotted a very large flock of Ross’s geese along the roadway that runs along the refuge, so I made steady progress back to this spot, where I figured I would do my evening photography. There was a very large group of geese already when I got there, and more were arriving from other far off locations. The geese mostly settle in on the pasture land and eat, but every so often something disturbs them and they take off en masse in a wild maelstrom of flapping wings and noise, fly around a few times, and soon return to almost the spot they left. There were two or three such giant “explosions” of flying geese as I photographed, and I shot this group using a rather slow shutter speed in post sunset dusk light.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.