Tag Archives: blur

Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Wildlife

Snow Geese in Motion

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Snow Geese in Motion - A subtle abstraction of motion-blurred snow geese in the sky over Skagit Valley, Washington.
A subtle abstraction of motion-blurred snow geese in the sky over Skagit Valley, Washington.

Snow Geese in Motion. Skagit Valley, Washington. February 19, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A subtle abstraction of motion-blurred snow geese in the sky over Skagit Valley, Washington.

In the second half of February I had the opportunity to spend four days in the Pacific Northwest, in and around the Seattle area. It seemed that there were two wildlife events taking place – both involving birds. The one that was getting the most attention was the snowy owls up in, if I understood correctly, the Vancouver, BC area. For a variety of reasons that subject was not going to be on my itinerary for this trip. The other was the trumpeter swans and snow geese that were settling in the lower Skagit Valley, roughly between Conley and Laconner. I did manage to spend the better part of an entire day there photographing these birds, along with a few others including bald eagles.

I arrived in the area very early, at just about the time of what would have been sunrise had it not been raining lightly. As I drove out of Conley I began to see the trumpeter swans here and there on the bright green winter fields. But despite some serious wandering about on rural side roads, I was not able to get close enough to them to make photographs. So I moved on, soon coming to a closed produce market alongside the road near fields and just before the road crossed the nearby river on a bridge through the woods. Here, at a curve in the road, I spotted many thousands of snow geese just across a drainage ditch and not far from the roadway. I pulled over and set up and watched as even more birds began to arrive, until the largest flock of geese that I have even seen was assembled in this empty field. Then, for some reason I could not discern, the entire group of thousands and thousands of geese spontaneously and en masse rose up into the air. Fortunately, I had been thinking about this possibility and an idea I had to photograph them with a long lens and at slow shutter speeds, and I was already at the right shutter speed and had the long lens on the camera. It was mostly a matter of aiming straight into the thickest part of the flock and trying to keep some eye on the background patterns as the geese rose into the air. I took this photograph from the set since it was almost entirely filled with geese and used it as a starting point to do a bit of additional post-processing to produce the interpretation of the photograph that you see here.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Bird-Filled Dusk Sky, Central Valley

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Bird-Filled Dusk Sky, Central Valley - The edge of a huge flock of geese fills the dusk sky above seasonal winter ponds in California's Central Valley.
The edge of a huge flock of geese fills the dusk sky above seasonal winter ponds in California's Central Valley.

Bird-Filled Dusk Sky, Central Valley. San Joaquin Valley, California. February 8, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The edge of a huge flock of geese fills the dusk sky above seasonal winter ponds in California’s Central Valley.

I continue to learn the cycles of the migratory winter birds over the Central Valley of California. Early in February I twice visited a wildlife refuge in the area roughly between Merced and Los Banos in the evening. On the first visit, we arrived to find white flocks of Ross’s geese settled into ponds and hour or two before sunset. As the day came to an end the geese started to lift off and fly away in groups and by sunset there were almost non of these birds left at “our pond.” I began to think that the show was over for the night, and I switched from photographs centered on wildlife to working with the trees and ponds and fields as landscape instead. Then, well along into the dusk hour, we heard a sound to the south that signaled the presence of a large number of migratory birds, and a moment later rank after rank of them appeared and crossed above our position on their way to settle in nearby.

Less than a week later I was back in the same area. Again, we arrived to find the Ross’s geese settled in on a pond, though this time there were far more of them and they were closer to our position. Again, during the hour before sunset they began to lift off and fly away. And again, there was a quiet point right around sunset when it seemed that the migratory birds had all left and only a few smaller birds remained. But this time we had our eyes on the sky, and before long we spotted a small, moving cloud far to the west against the shadow of the coast range mountains, and we recognized it as a “flock” of birds. Soon we realized this was not just another small flock – it was a veritable cloud of birds that grew in size as it approached, became louder, and then quickly filled the sky above us with the sound and sight of thousands of wheeling birds.

The photograph shows just the far edge of this “cloud,” as the rest of the birds had just passed across our position and were mostly behind and to either side. Because I had a long zoom lens on the camera, I was just able to move toward its widest setting and quickly compose a photograph that included a bit of the pond, some trees and the far hills, and enough of the flock to suggest its size.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Fennel, Distant Birds, Morning

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Fennel, Distant Birds, Morning - Early morning light on a row of fennel plants with migratory birds passing in the distance, Central Valley, California.
Early morning light on a row of fennel plants with migratory birds passing in the distance, Central Valley, California.

Fennel, Distant Birds, Morning. Central Valley, California. January 18, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early morning light on a row of fennel plants with migratory birds passing in the distance, Central Valley, California.

If you don’t look closely, fennel is a pretty nondescript plant, especially during the dry season when it more or less goes dormant and consists mostly of dry twigs and branches and a few dry seeds. I never paid much attention to it at all when I was younger, despite spending a lot of time in the California outdoors, where the plant is very common. I think the first time that I actually noticed it was some years ago when I was surprised to smell the familiar fragrance of anise (as in licorice) while hiking or running along a local trail. I stopped and noticed the familiar seeds that I had used in cooking, picked a few, crushed them, and noticed that powerful smell. (There is a group of plants found in outdoor California that often cause me to stop and engage in this ritual of picking a leaf or seed, crushing it, and enjoying the scent: fennel, bay/laurel, sage…)

True to form, I wasn’t really paying much attention to these plants growing along the boundary between a Central Valley road and a flooded field where I had stopped to make photographs of migratory birds in late January. It may actually be the case that I only really “saw” them when my camera’s AF system “incorrectly” locked focus on the plants instead of more distant subjects! But this shot was not an accident. At this point I had noticed the plants and they became the subject, with relief from cross light from the rising sun and against the background of hazy early morning sky.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Ross’s Geese, Winter Evening

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Ross's Geese, Winter Evening - Motion-blurred photograph of low-flying Ross's geese on a winter evening in California's Central Valley.
Motion-blurred photograph of low-flying Ross's geese on a winter evening in California's Central Valley.

Ross’s Geese, Winter Evening. Merced National Wildlife Refuge, California. February 8, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Motion-blurred photograph of low-flying Ross’s geese on a winter evening in California’s Central Valley.

From time to time I experiment with longer exposure photographs of birds in flight. The idea is that allowing the image to blur as the birds move might suggest their constant motion more effectively than the more typical approach of stopping the motion. Here not only was the exposure relatively long (I think it was 1/30 second) but I was shooting with a long telephoto which also amplifies the motion of subject and camera.

I’m thinking of this as a “study” for future photographs of these Ross’s geese and similar birds that will work with this idea of motion blur. Making this shot let me get a bit closer to understanding the most likely times to find the birds lifting off in the evening, and the best time to try to catch this with a bit of the last sunlight before sunset. I was also able to slightly better establish the shutter speed I would like to work with for this kind of image. The idea is to keep just barely enough shape in the birds that you can recognize what they are, but to allow the motion to blur things enough to eliminate the hyper-sharp realistic quality of the scene and to let the motion blur imply something about the actual flying motion of the birds.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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.