Tag Archives: america

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California

Shoreline Building, China Camp

January 14, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A shoreline building extends over the edge of San Francisco Bay at China Camp

I had been watching the reflections on the calm water of this lagoon since I first arrived here in the morning. Earlier I had been on a high bluff behind the camera position for this photograph, looking down at this village and the curve of the beach of its small lagoon. The clouds thinning behind a departing Pacific weather front were starting to allow sun light to pass, yet still filtering and softening it. This light was falling on the smooth surface of this water in this relatively quiet area of the San Francisco Bay, and creating all sorts of interesting reflections.

Eventually I walked down to the village and among its old buildings, gravitating toward the shoreline. I first photographed an old pier and then investigated a building from which it extends. From here I was able to look out across the lagoon toward a further peninsula and the light of the sun on the clouds. This was technically a bit of a tricky photograph since it includes brightly sun-lit clouds right above and to the left of the building, but also includes deep shadows below and on the near side of the building. To be honest, I was unsure of what exposure would work best and provide the best balance between avoidance of blown out sky and enough shadow detail to pull it back in past without problems with image noise – so I bracketed. I bracketed like nobody’s business – making something like five exposures in the series. Ironically, in the end I was able to extract all of the detail I needed from a single exposure!

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

Geese in Motion

January 12, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of geese takes flight in front of a winter evening sky, San Joaquin Valley, California

This is another bird photograph that intentionally flirts with the limits long shutter speed in order to allow motion blur to affect the image. This is perhaps a bit less “abstract” than the previous one I shared in that you can still see reasonably well-defined shapes of some birds in this photograph.

On a winter evening in California’s Central Valley I intentionally lowered the shutter speed to a setting much slower than normally used for handheld shots with a long lens. I tracked the birds as they lifted off during the evening “fly out” event, attempting to shoot during moments when the flock assembled itself into some sort of interesting configuration and, if possible was seen against something interesting in the sky beyond – dusk colors, other birds, etc. The faint blurs in the lower portion of the image are more distant flock. Although it almost doesn’t matter in a photograph like this one, the birds are Ross’s geese. One thing that appeals to me in this photograph is that while the birds are little more than vaporous smudges in some places, in other you can almost make out actual details for their shapes.

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

Ross’s Geese, Golden Hour Fly-Out

January 11, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Ross’s geese take wing during the sunset fly-out, San Joaquin Valley, California

As happens often enough to make things interesting, the light at the end of this day of less-than-phenomenal light momentarily made up for some of the earlier “blah” light. It had been a good day of goose (and crane) chasing, but with few moments of sublime light so far. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since even when the light is not at its most astonishing out here, the air and the sound of the birds still makes it worthwhile, especially when a large flock of geese suddenly lifts off in unison or when the sound of cranes floats down as they coast overhead.

But still, we want that light! Just before sunset, as the hazy sky was already starting to dim, the last sun slanted in from the west at a low angle just as this flock of geese was beginning to fly out for the night. I made this photograph just a moment after the foreground group had taken to the air, but while other groups that had lifted off earlier were still visible beyond them as they departed over the grove of trees to the north.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Rat Rock Island, Sky

January 10, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Rat Rock Island and winter sky, China Camp, California

I ended up at China Camp in connection with a “photo walk” in the San Francisco Bay Area that was devoted to long exposure photography. Photo walks have recently become quite a phenomenon, especially with the rise of Google Plus communities formed around photography. A week hardly passes around here without the announcement of another such event. Photographically they can be a bit of a mixed bag if you already know the area, but the provide fun opportunities to meet a lot of photographers of all sorts, often including a few folks you might have heard of but never met. When I go, I frequently end up shooting a bit apart from the main crowd, and that is what initially happened here… though that didn’t last!

This little island is a fairly well-known feature in the Bay Area, and I have seen beautiful photographs of it in the past. It is also not all that impressive in person, though with the right light and atmosphere it can be the center for very interesting photographic interpretations. I arrived at this location before other “photo-walkers” arrived, so I briefly had the place to myself. I tried a few things with this subject, ranging from some very tight shots that don’t include the whole island to some that used very short focal lengths to reduce its apparent size and to then set it in a much larger surrounding landscape. This is probably the most straightforward composition of the bunch. Since the focus of this day was to be “long exposure” photography, I was playing around with that idea a bit, and this shot is indeed a rather long exposure.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: america

Shoreline Building, China Camp

Geese in Motion

Ross’s Geese, Golden Hour Fly-Out

Rat Rock Island, Sky

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