Tag Archives: central

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.
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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

Ross’s Geese Take Flight, Dusk

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Ross's Geese Take Flight, Dusk - A flock of Ross's geese take flight at dusk above a Central Valley pond, California.
A flock of Ross's geese take flight at dusk above a Central Valley pond, California.

Ross’s Geese Take Flight, Dusk. Central Valley, California. February 8, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A flock of Ross’s geese take flight at dusk above a Central Valley pond, California.

Yes, another photograph of geese taking flight above a California Central Valley pond. I can’t help myself! :-) After photographing the dwindling flock, as they left in large groups during the hour before sunset, at the point of most beautiful light there were only a few left. This group was among the very last to depart from this pond, and at this point it was dusk and the colors had gone from the crisp blues of an hour earlier to warm pinks and reds and purples. We were lucky enough to be very close to this large flock for at least an hour.

I’ll use this photograph to make another technical observation. I made what might seem like an odd choice regarding exposure for this shot. Here I wanted to try to stop the motion of the birds as they lifted off. (In other photographs of this subject I intentionally allow the motion to blur.) This meant that I needed a relatively short shutter speed. Even after raising the ISO to 400 and opening up the largest aperture on this long lens, the result was still going to be underexposure. for what I had in mind for this sequence of shots, I wanted to avoid using an ultra-high ISO with the attendant increase in noise. So I chose to deliberately underexpose these shots by perhaps a couple of stops, trusting that I’d be able to compensate for this in post since I shoot in raw mode. In other words, if you are the sort who scans EXIF data for exposure information and then tries to make sense out of it or even use it yourself… you have been warned! :-)

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, Photographs: Wildlife

Tundra Swans, Dawn

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Tundra Swans, Dawn - Tundra swans in dawn light above the Central Valley of California.
Tundra swans in dawn light above the Central Valley of California.

Tundra Swans, Dawn. Central Valley, California. January 28, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tundra swans in dawn light above the Central Valley of California.

This is the second photograph of this particular group of tundra swans that flew low over our position near the end of Woodbridge Road in the California Central Valley near the end of January. With all the challenges of photographing flying birds in limited light and with long lenses, it is no wonder that one gets a less than 100% success rate with these photographs. But every so often all the pieces fall into place and you end up with something that is not another slightly out-of-focus, slightly mis-aimed, over- or under-exposed photograph of the silhouettes of bird undersides. Seriously. ;-)

This group came over at a relatively low level, though not so low than individual birds would fill the viewfinder. By default, I usually begin with the camera in “landscape” (horizontal) mode for this sort of subject, but because these birds were almost directly overhead and lined up “vertically” rather than strung out in a line, I decided to quickly shift the camera to “portrait” (vertical) orientation after one initial exposure as they approached. Now the trick was to try to keep my eye on one bird that needed to be under the AF point, while simultaneously remaining aware of the entire flock so that I could keep them within the boundary of the frame and try to catch them at a point when they were not blocking one another. The fact that I got the beautiful morning light coming from below was partially due to being there good and early, and possibly due to the birds thoughtfully positioning themselves to allow this. Thank you, tundra swans!

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

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.
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.