Tag Archives: cattle

Basin and Range, Monsoon Clouds

August 21, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening monsoon thunderstorms dissipate above the basin and range terrain of Nevada

This simple photograph necessarily leads to a long story. It starts many, many years ago when I was a child. My family moved to California from Minnesota when I was four years old, and every few years we took a long trip back to the Midwest to visit my mother’s family in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. (Although I have not been there for some years now, I still have fond feelings for the place.) Sometimes we drove, with my parents figuring out routes that would take us through national parks and monuments — Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain, etc — along the way. Several times we took the train, which in those days was the famous California Zephyr. We would get on the train in Fremont, California and travel all the way to Omaha, Nebraska, arriving very early in the morning and then getting to South Dakota by (usually) rental car or (occasionally) a plane. To a young kid, the California Zephyr was an amazing thing — somehow we got “Pullman” sleeper cars, ate in the dining car, and — if my memory is correct — passed hours in the vista dome car watching the terrain roll by.

Jump forward to the new millennium. Patty’s brother and sister-in-law, and two of our sons and their girlfriends live in Brooklyn, so we find excuses to go to New York City every year or so. This time we went not only to visit family, but also so that Patty could attend the International Double Reed Society conference at NYU. We’ve flown plenty of times, so this time we decided to give the train a try. (We did fly back home at the end of the trip — a good choice in my view.) So on this last day of July we went up to Emeryville, where the Zephyr’s trip starts these days, and embarked on our adventure, nostalgic for me and brand new for Patty. There is much more to say about train travel than I have space for here, but I’ll share just a bit about the first day. The route begins along the shores of the San Francisco Bay and then up the delta to Sacramento, the historic end point of the continental railroad. From there the train crosses the Sierra above Truckee Lake, an absolutely beautiful route that often reveals perspectives on this part of the Sierra that are quite different from what we know from driving Interstate 80. As we crossed the crest, the clouds thickened and we rolled through a hail storm as we descended to Truckee. Not long after that we stopped briefly in Reno, Nevada, and then continued on to the northeast across Nevada. After we passed through Winnemucca (from which I departed some years ago on a grand bike trip across the Black Rock Desert and into Northern California) the train continued on through the Humboldt Basin as evening came on and beautiful light fell on the rangeland and the monsoon clouds overhead as the day came to an end.

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

Calf, Cottonwoods, and Cranes in Flight

November 29, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A calf grazes near a row of autumn cottonwood trees on a foggy morning and as sandhill cranes fly overhead

On this foggy morning I had begun photographing a bit earlier, just at dawn. I gradually worked my way along a gravel country road, stopping frequently – spending more time stopped than driving, actually – to photograph the foggy landscape and migratory birds. At this early hour, the sandhill cranes were my primary targets. At times, when the fog cleared a bit, it was possible to see many of them taking off for distant points as the day began. When the fog thickened, they were heard more than seen, at least until they flew close enough to momentarily appear overhead through the fog.

In a place where the road paralleled a row of cottonwood trees with golden autumn leaves I stopped to wait for the birds to fly overhead. From a distance away I had figured out that many of the cranes were headed this way as they took off, so it seemed that if I stopped and waited here quietly the birds might come to me. And they did – every few minutes another group would fly low over my position. I shared this spot with a herd of cattle, quite a few of whom found me to be the most interesting thing in their early morning world and stared quietly at me. One calf that had passed beneath a fence around the pasture was busy grazing along the lane, so I stopped and photographed it beneath the cottonwood trees as a group of sandhill cranes passed overhead.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Raven on Fence Post

June 23, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A raven perches on a fence post above cattle ranch pasture, Point Reyes National Seashore

I had not gone to Point Reyes to photograph ravens. In fact, the thought of photographing these birds, which are not exactly high on my list of birds I love to photograph, had not even crossed my mind. I had a half day to do some shooting, so got up three hours before dawn and drove north through San Francisco, over the Golden Gate Bridge, into Marin County and then over to the coast, hoping to make it all the way out to the tip of Point Reyes to photograph Drakes Bay at sunrise. I didn’t make it quite in time, and instead ended up photographing Tomales Bay as the sun came up. After that I headed out on the road toward the point, but on a whim decided to finally drive up the Mount Vision Road, which I have always passed by on my way to other places. This was in interesting diversion, but after a while I remembered that a group of folks from the Bay Area was going to meet up to photograph the Point Reyes tule elk at around 9:00 a.m.

I figured I might try to join them, even though I haven’t really had that much luck photographing the elk in the area at the north end of the park where they are most easily found. (My best “elk experience” in the park was in a different area where I didn’t even expect to see them.) So I drove back a bit and then out on the road toward where the elk are found – in the area beyond Abbott Lagoon and near Pierce Ranch and McClure Beach. As I started out that road I saw a lot of birds of various sorts, so I stopped and grabbed my camera with the big lens from the trunk and put it on the seat next to me. (Smarter photographers than I probably normally keep such a setup handy while driving!) Sure enough, before long I started passing lots of birds along the road including this cooperative raven, who despite looking a bit nervous when I stopped close enough to make a photograph, stuck around long enough for me to get one shot… before other cars drove up and passed me and scared the bird away.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Owens Valley

Ranch and Morning Fog, Owens Valley

October 12, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

As is often the case, there is a story behind this photograph – an image that I think is fairly atypical of my work, at least as to the subject.

A year ago, almost to the day, I was also in the eastern Sierra to photograph aspens. And on that day I got up very early at my lodging in Mammoth and headed out before sunrise, which it was still dark actually, without a fixed idea of where or what I was going to photograph. I reached highway 395 and headed south, with a vague idea of heading up one of the promising canyons such as that of McGee or perhaps Rock Creek. But very soon I saw fog out in Owens Valley above Crowley Lake and I started thinking of instead heading away from the Sierra and out into that Valley. I ended up at a small pond from which I photographed the light from the rising sun as it hit the eastern slopes of the Sierra.

That show was over fairly quickly, so I decided to explore a bit. I had noticed mist and fog in various places in the surrounding area. Some of it seemed to come from small hot springs while in other places it seemed to extensive for that. I picked, more or less randomly, some gravel roads that headed toward the foggy areas and ended up on Hot Creek, where I made several photographs of and through the fog rising from the water.

Fast forward to this year. The first day of aspen shooting was productive, but the colors were overall not really as spectacular as I had hoped. If the intended subject “isn’t happening,” I’ll often change course and look for something else. So, once again I woke up without an aspen photography plan, but with two other vague ideas in mind. One was to go up to Minaret Summit and photograph the first light on the Minarets and Ritter and Banner Peaks. The other was to drive south again on 395 to see what would happen. When I got in my car to head out I still literally did not know where I would go. I sat in the car a moment and then, for reasons that I can’t recall, picked the 395 option. (Later I realized that the other option could have been productive, too.) I headed south on 395 and was astonished to see – again! – the fog over Crowley and the mist rising out in Owens Valley. So I went to my little lake to shoot there first and then headed out to where I had shot Hot Creek last year, but this time I kept going. At one point I passed this small range while heading out but couldn’t see a shot. Later on my return trip I passed it again, and this time I saw the stock grazing in the frozen meadow next to this small creek, with mist and fog rising everywhere. I stopped.

(By the way, this is a color photograph…)

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