Tag Archives: area

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

Cranes and Geese, Sunset, Reflecting Pond

January 31, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cranes fly through evening sky above geese in a San Joaquin Valley pond.

I made this photograph on New Year’s Day 2014. Two years ago it seemed like a good idea to begin the new year by greeting its first dawn in the San Joaquin Valley, and sharing the experience with thousands of migratory birds and a few like-minded friends. Getting there was a stretch this year – late the previous night I had arrived home from a week in New York City, and getting up four hours later to drive two hours in the dark was going to be a challenge. But I made it and after photographing through the morning I thought that I might just head home. In the early afternoon we broke off from the photography and went to nearby town to grab something to eat, and by the time we were done it was only an hour or less until the evening “show” would begin back in the wetlands, so I shelved by early departure plans and headed back into the field.

I’m glad I did. It turned out to be a very beautiful evening, with many thousands of birds and with an unexpectedly beautiful sky. Often when it seems a bit gray and “blah” in the late afternoon, the evening light can end up illuminating this thick atmosphere, turning it both colorful and near-transparent. That is what happened here as I was photographing a large group of Ross’s geese that had settled in on the wetlands near this small tree. As the light diminished, I hoped for a fly-in of the sandhill cranes, which can be one of the most magical moments of any day in this area. Unlike the geese, which tend toward raucous and unpredictable behavior, the sandhill cranes seem to show up in large groups right at dusk, mostly gliding smoothly above the ponds as they head for their landing spots.

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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: San Francisco

Marin Headlands, Winter Evening

January 24, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Golden evening haze over the Pacific Coast below the rugged cliffs of the Marin headlands

How we ended up here on this evening in a slightly complicated and random story. Our main goal was to go San Francisco’s De Young Museum, where the big show of David Hockney’s work was entering its final days – we had been planning to go but somehow the time passed and it was now or never. I’d write, “It is a great show and you should go…” but it is too late! Hockney’s work is engrossing and compelling and includes subjects that a landscape photographer can identify with. (Hockney’s relationship to photography is interesting and, it seems, a bit complex. He is known for some photo collages that he created, yet he disparages photography or at least the way photography is often done. He apparently said something about photography along the lines of it being fine if you want to view the world from the point of view of a paralyzed cyclops. Ouch!)

We spent a few hours in the exhibit and then it was mid afternoon. There were still a couple of hours of light left, so we decided to head across the Golden Gate Bridge, but with only the vaguest of plans in mind. (Basically the plan consisted of “Coffee and then look for something before the light is gone.”) By the time we got over there and were ready to look for light, we realized that we had only a short time before the light would go and we would have to head back over the bridge to get dinner. (We had reservations at a favorite Indian restaurant.) We realized that we had only enough time to drive up into the headlands on our way to the bridge, so up Conzelman Road we went. I missed a mysterious and ominous photograph of a large freighter in the haze outside the Golden Gate since I wasn’t able to find a place to stop and park – but we finally managed to park the car and get out and look around. I did not take my camera gear out at first, since I have more than enough photographs of The City and the bridge at sunset, but soon I became interested in the backlit glow around the rugged cliffs dropping to the water to the west and then the expanse of glowing, hazy air stretching over the water towards the horizon, where water and sky merged invisibly.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Rim Fire Burn Zone, Morning

January 10, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An area near “Rim of the World” recently burned by the Rim Fire

Late this past summer one of the worst wildfires in the Sierra burned extensive areas near and within the northwest “corner” of Yosemite National Park. The “Rim Fire,” as it has come to be known (since it started near the “Rim of the World” overlook) came at a time of very bad conditions – in hot and dry weather, late in the season, and at the end of a second drought year in California. The first spread very quickly, and it took tremendous efforts to contain it – and full suppression took many, many weeks.

Since the fire burned in areas that I know very well from decades of travel through this part of the Sierra, I was anxious to see the extent of the damage. At first I thought I might get a chance in early September, when I traveled back and forth to the eastern Sierra to photograph fall colors. However, weather interfered – snow closed Tioga Pass Road and I ended up taking different routes across the range. Finally, at the very end of October, on a drive to Yosemite Valley I passed this way early in the morning. Overall, from what little I could observe, several things seem clear: the fire burned a very large area, some sections were very badly damaged and it will be a long time before trees grow there again, other sections were only lightly burned and a few were skipped over. This view, from the “Rim of the World” overlook, rises from the close charred hills above the Tuolumne River Canyon, across more distant ridges, and culminates at far peaks with a light dusting of early season snow. All of the conditions I described above are visible here – serious destruction in the foreground, a bit further in there are some trees that were burned by not killed, and far beyond there is forest that appears to have not been burned.

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

Sandhill Cranes, Marsh, Dawn

January 7, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Flocks of sandhill cranes fly through dawn haze above San Joaquin Valley marshland

This is another New Year’s Day photograph – and probably won’t be the last one. The typical process when I shoot here is to start at a parking area near the entrance before the sun comes up, either meeting friends there or else simply pausing to get my gear ready and put on warm clothes. Without fail, I also pause for a few minutes to take in the extraordinary sound of the many thousands of migratory birds, usually coming from unseen places off in the mist or fog, and the sound always makes me smile. I may make a few initial photographs in the dim predawn light, and then I usually move off to start looking for subjects.

On this morning I began my “move” before the sun came up, but moments later I looked over my shoulder to see the first light of the rising sun, and I quickly found this location with a small gap in the tules, a bare tree, and some reflecting water, and I lined them up with the rising sun. In this foggy valley, when the fog is not too thick, there is a brief interval of perhaps a minute or two when the globe of the sun rises behind the fog, which mutes the light and allows me to shoot straight into the sun. Also right about dawn, flights of sandhill cranes lift off and fly in lines above the landscape – and on this morning the two ephemeral events happened simultaneously.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: area

Cranes and Geese, Sunset, Reflecting Pond

Marin Headlands, Winter Evening

Rim Fire Burn Zone, Morning

Sandhill Cranes, Marsh, Dawn

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