Tag Archives: brush

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Tungsten Hills, Buttermilk Country, and the Sierra Crest

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Tungsten Hills, Buttermilk Country, and the Sierra Crest - Layers of terrain including Owens Valley sagebrush, the Tungsten Hills, Buttermilk Country, and the Sierra Crest including Basin Mountain, Mount Humphreys, and Mount Emerson
Layers of terrain including Owens Valley sagebrush, the Tungsten Hills, Buttermilk Country, and the Sierra Crest including Basin Mountain, Mount Humphreys, and Mount Emerson

Tungsten Hills, Buttermilk Country, and the Sierra Crest. Round Valley, California. January 2, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Layers of terrain including Owens Valley sagebrush, the Tungsten Hills, Buttermilk Country, and the Sierra Crest including Basin Mountain, Mount Humphreys, and Mount Emerson.

In some ways this is a very typical eastern Sierra Nevada scene but in others, some of which might not be immediately obvious, it is atypical. I made the photograph while on my way to Death Valley in early January 2012. I had done the long drive over Tioga Pass (a first hint about the “unusual” issue) and was headed south to where I would turn east to cross the Inyo Range to that park. As I descended the long grade from Tom’s Place toward Bishop I passed through familiar Round Valley, but this little scene of sagebrush, Sierra foothills, and the crest caught my attention so I quickly stopped and made a few photographs.

The first and primary unusual thing about this photograph is that this was January! In a typical January the peaks here would be completely buried in winter snows – but this January the snowpack brought to mind mid-July. Although the season had started with early and heavy snows in October, things came to an abrupt halt and at this point it had been a month since real snow had fallen. A second slightly unusual thing is that I made this photograph in the mid-afternoon time frame. This is not a time typically regarded as being conducive to landscape photography. However, the high backlight was making the bluish haze more visible and the light was softened a bit by the high clouds, so I went ahead and made a photograph that, I hope, captures the somewhat harsh and dry conditions of the area and the season.

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

Row of Trees, Evening

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Row of Trees, Evening - A row of bare trees stands next to a pond in evening light at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge, Central Valley, California.
A row of bare trees stands next to a pond in evening light at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge, Central Valley, California.

Row of Trees, Evening. Central Valley, California. February 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A row of bare trees stands next to a pond in evening light at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge, Central Valley, California.

While photographing migratory birds in early February at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge in California’s Central Valley, just before sunset there was a lull in the “bird action,” and I realized that I had neglected to photograph much of anything besides the birds. With this in mind, I left the edge of the ponds where we had been shooting, and I took a short walk along a nearby trail that went out into some brushy areas that generally seemed sort of nondescript. Except… I’m fascinated by brushy, scrubby trees and brush and I’m always challenged when it comes to thinking about how to make photographic sense of this subject. In the right light the shapes and subtle colors can be quite interesting, but it can also be tricky to find a composition in the dense growth.

As I walked I passed along a small pond, and at first I noticed the reflection of a tree whose trunk was branching out in many different directions and its mirrored image in the water. Then I saw this row of barren trees, which I assume might have been planted along the levee as some sort of wind break. Their straight forms were tall and parallel, except that here and there this orderly form was broken up by a trunk or branch pointing off in some odd direction and creating a bit of visual dissonance. Since it was the lens I already had on the camera for photographing birds, I made this landscape photo with what might seem to be the least likely of landscape lenses, a 100-400mm zoom!

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

Two Owls, Trees and Ponds, Dusk

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Two Owls, Trees and Ponds, Dusk - Two owls in the branches of a group of trees at dusk, reflected in the waters of a pond at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge
Two owls in the branches of a group of trees at dusk, reflected in the waters of a pond at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge

Two Owls, Trees and Ponds, Dusk. Merced National Wildlife Refuge, California. February 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two owls in the branches of a group of trees at dusk, reflected in the waters of a pond at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge.

I originally posted this in an impromptu manner and out of sequence back on SuperB owl Sunday – but now it comes up “officially” in the queue. At the very end of a winter day that had begun well before dawn back up the Central Valley closer to Sacramento (in the Cosumnes River area, to be precise) we had headed south to Merced National Wildlife Refuge in search of somewhat different subject for the evening. We arrived to find some geese on the pond, but most were a bit too far off for good photography. But while we settled in to wait for whatever else might show up, I turned my attention to the beautiful and wide-open Central Valley landscape.

This little group of trees grows on a small levee between a couple of ponds in this agricultural area. (Over the past few weeks I have come to know this exact spot very well, as I have been back three times now to photograph there, with better and better luck each time.) After the sun set, some of the most beautiful light appeared – the soft and pink/purple/blue atmospheric light of dusk, when there is still some brighter color in the sky. I saw a single bird high in one of the branches of this tree and soon figured out it was an owl. I set up a composition that centered the tree – creating, I hope, a sense of quiet and stillness – and which included a bit of the sky and the beautiful reflection of the tree’s silhouette in the water. As I shot, a second owl showed up for a few seconds and I was able to get a frame with the couple together.

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: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Joshua Tree Forest

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Joshua Tree Forest - Joshua tree forest in the Inyo Mountains near Eureka Valley
Joshua tree forest in the Inyo Mountains near Eureka Valley

Joshua Tree Forest. Inyo Mountains, California. January 6, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Joshua tree forest in the Inyo Mountains near Eureka Valley.

At the end of my January 2012 visit to Death Valley National Park, I exited to the north, stopping for an evening and a morning at the Eureka Valley Dunes, and then heading out to the north toward Big Pine. This was my first drive across this route, so I got to see some brand new (to me) California territory. The drive began by retracing the route along the gravel road to the dunes, then rejoined the main road – still gravel – coming up from the Park. This road was in great shape, well graded and wide, as it headed out of Eureka Valley and into the Inyo Mountains.

After entering the Inyos, it wasn’t very long before pavement resumed – which is a welcome thing at this point, since I had been almost entirely on gravel roads, some badly washboarded, for something like 65 miles or more at this point. As the road climbed out of Eureka Valley and up a mountain canyon it soon passed through fairly large joshua tree forests. Since I hadn’t eaten yet today and it was now past mid-morning, I took this as an opportunity to stop for some breakfast/lunch and to photograph these fascinating trees, here stretching across waves of sage and brush covered hills backed by higher hills that were still in shadow.

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.