Tag Archives: branch

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Utah

Branch With Spring Leaves, Zion National Park

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Branch With Spring Leaves, Zion National Park - New spring leaves and seeds appear on the branch of a cottonwood tree, Zion National Park, Utah
New spring leaves and seeds, Zion National Park, Utah

Branch With Spring Leaves, Zion National Park. Zion National Park, Utah. April 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

New spring leaves and seeds appear on the branch of a box elder tree, Zion National Park, Utah.

Among the places I photographed on my recent Utah trip was Zion National Park – I place about which I have heard and seen much, but which I had not previously visited. A friend described the Virgin River Canyon in this park as “Yosemite Valley in red,” and this seems like an apt description. I responded differently to each of the parks we visited. Canyonlands was huge and austere. Arches was literally “fantastic,” and elicited the most intense response. But Zion seems like a place that is more subtle, with a lot to see and get to know.

Among the features that seem to me to typify this area are the cottonwood, box elder, red maple, and other trees. During our visit they were just barely beginning to get their new spring leaves – in some places we saw bare trees, in a few we saw trees that had almost a full set of leaves, but for the most part we saw trees that had just a hint of the bright green color of new leaves. One morning we took the short walk to weeping rock in Zion Canyon. While I didn’t quite see photographs in this feature itself, I did spot this box elder branch suspended just about the trail, backlit by morning light and with the faint colors of sandstone cliffs and canyon bottom plants beyond.

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: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Tree Farm, Skagit Valley

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Tree Farm, Skagit Valley - Dense winter trees in the grove of a tree farm, Skagit Valley, Washington.
Dense winter trees in the grove of a tree farm, Skagit Valley, Washington.

Tree Farm, Skagit Valley. Skagit Valley, Washington, February 19, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dense winter trees in the grove of a tree farm, Skagit Valley, Washington.

Back in February I spent a few days in Washington state, and during this visit I had an opportunity to spend one full day photographing in lower Skagit Valley north of Seattle. Among other things, main attractions there at this time of year can include spectacular views of some of the nearby snow-covered peaks of the Cascade range (or so I’m told… ;-), impressive flocks of migratory birds including trumpeter swans and snow geese, and other birds such as owls and bald eagles. Having recently become a big fan of photographing the migratory birds of California’s Central Valley, my main goal on this visit was to photograph the geese and swans.

I arrived in the area just before sunrise – or what would have been sunrise if it hadn’t been completely socked in by clouds and intermittently raining lightly. After a bit of looking around I found a great location for photographing gigantic flocks of snow geese as they landed, collected on the ground, and then suddenly took of in huge groups. A bit later in the day my brother Richard joined me. Since he actually knows this area, having lived and photographed here for many years, I took his lead and we moved on to look for bald eagles. (Well, we also moved on to have a wonderful brunch in a nearby town first…) After a bit of driving around we came to this spot which I understand is some sort of tree farm. Among these tall, slender, straight, and tightly packed trees, we spotted a few bald eagles roosting in the upper branches. We found one beautiful bird in trees very close to the road, stopped, and began to quietly get ready to shoot – but the bird was having none of it, and it flew to other trees that were too far off for photography. However, this grove itself seemed interesting to me, and in the soft, cloudy light I like the way that the white trunks and the dense small branches appeared against the background of a further ridge.

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: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Tree Farm and Hills

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Tree Farm and Hills - The bare winter trunks of a tree farm against a backdrop of low hills, Skagit Valley, Washington
The bare winter trunks of a tree farm against a backdrop of low hills, Skagit Valley, Washington

Tree Farm and Hills. February 19, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The bare winter trunks of a tree farm against a backdrop of low hills, Skagit Valley, Washington.

This is perhaps a bit of a subtle photograph. While shooting in the Skagit Valley of Washington, my brother Richard and I took a break from photographing trumpeter swans and snow geese and went looking for bald eagles, which hang out nearby in large numbers. We eventually found several of them in various trees in the area, including in the upper branches of these large groves of trees that I think may be poplars that are part of a tree farm. (Our first attempt with the eagles was a classic. We saw a beautiful bird in a tree at the edge of the grove right alongside the road. We stopped. We carefully fitted the right long lenses. We got out. We aimed… and the eagle flew away.)

While standing around looking for the birds I was fascinated by the regular patters of these very slender and closely spaced trees in the tree farms that were along the road. The light was very muted due to overcast, and the trees themselves don’t provide a whole lot of light/dark contrast. I found a section of the grove that I liked and then worked my position so that I could get the diagonal of the more distant and out of focus ridge to cut across the background and angle down to the right.

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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Birds, Trees, Ponds – California Central Valley

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Birds, Trees, Ponds - California Central Valley - Migratory birds fly over a group of trees at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge as others congregate in a pond.
Migratory birds fly over a group of trees at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge as others congregate in a pond.

Birds, Trees, Ponds – California Central Valley. Merced National Wildlife Refuge. February 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Migratory birds fly over a group of trees at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge as others congregate in a pond.

In my continuing mission to share as many photographs of this little grove of trees in as many ways as possible, I now present – The Trees In Black and White… ;-) I have shot this little group on two successive weeks now, and I’m starting to almost regard them as personal friends. They are located out along the “auto tour” route at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge in California’s Central Valley. From certain angles late in the day they stand in front of a beautiful, luminous glowing sky as the sun moves to the west.

I made this photograph in the early evening, before the golden hour light. Due to these lighting conditions and the typical characteristics of the Valley at this time of year, there was a great deal of atmospheric haze. While later light would reveal the ridge of the coast range in the distance, at this time the glowing haze blocked that view, and its effect can even be seen on the trees along the far levee. As large flocks of birds flew by – I think they were geese – they would pass behind and above the trees. Often they were in odd positions – too low to be visible behind the trees or so high that I would have had to expand the angle of view more than I wanted. But patience helps. I figure that eventually some birds will almost always fly past in the more or less right position, and here a lower string of birds was accompanied by a few flying higher. As I often do with this sort of subject, I compose a landscape around a combination of what I do see (the foreground water and birds, the levees, the trees) and what I imagine I might see if I’m lucky (birds occupying the space on either side and above the trees). Then I wait. I recall pressing the shutter release when the central three birds were centered above the tallest trees.

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.