Tag Archives: Cloud

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Ground, Fog, Birds, Sky

April 8, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of geese takes to the air above a fog bank at dawn

This might seem almost like a photograph of nothing, but I don’t see it quite that way. Arriving very early on a winter morning at one of my favorite bird areas in the Central Valley, I found it quite foggy. It wasn’t so foggy that I couldn’t see, but the atmosphere near the ground was opaque enough to limit my view to perhaps a few hundred feet, especially along the ground that was shrouded by this tule fog.

Before long a huge flock of geese lifted off from behind the low fog and streamed across by view from one side to the other, just about the fog cloud. Because of the distance to the birds their cries were muted and, oddly, everything seemed almost still and quiet even as what may have been thousands of birds were in the air. My idea for this photograph is to make it into a very large print, where the layers may have an imposing scale reminiscent of actually being there.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature

Smoke-Shrouded Hills

March 11, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Wildfire smoke envelops hills east of the Sierra Nevada near Mono Lake

I made this photograph on a special morning that didn’t initially seem all that special. The night before I had driven down into Lee Vining Canyon after dark, and I could see the glow of a new wildfire to the southeast. In the morning I left my camp in the canyon and headed east to see what I could see. I found a high overlook and soon saw a giant plume of rising smoke to the south and tendrils of smoke drifting north toward and over Mono Lake.

I spent a few minutes photographing the drifting smoke above the lake, but very soon the smoke became too thick. I had to find a location that was on that boundary between too much and too little smoke — enough to partially obscure the details of the landscape, but not so much as to render it invisible. I moved further north to another high elevation locations and photographed back into the Basin. But this point the lower elevations were largely filled with smoke, but here one tree-covered ridge emerges and rises toward the still blue sky.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Wildfire Smoke, Morning Light

November 30, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light reflects on the surface of Mono Lake, partially obscured by drifting wildfire smoke

The night before I made this photograph I had driven back to my Lee Vining Canyon camp from a backcountry hike in the Tioga Pass area, leaving the park and descending the steep route after dark. As I crossed the upper end of Lee Vining Canyon, where there is a relatively clear view to the east, I saw the pall of smoke from a developing wildfire and the glow from the flames lighting it from below. Given California’s drought, the late point in the dry season, and the number of other fires in this area, I was quite concerned about what might be happening.

I got up well before dawn the next morning and as I headed down canyon toward Mono Lake there was just a bit of smoke in the air. As I came around the final bend before the junction with US 395, however, I could see that there was a very dark cloud to the southeast and that layers of smoke were starting to drift across the surface of Mono Lake in the pre-dawn light. My first though was a bit of disappointment that the smoke was likely to interfere with my photography plans, but this was quickly replaced by the realization that I was starting to see some very special and unusual conditions as the dawn approached. I found a high place and went to work photographing abstract and soft patterns composed of the reflecting surface of Mono Lake, the drifting smoke bands, and the partially obscured distant mountains.

Photographs: Italy

Lamp, Cloud, Stone Walls

August 24, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Midday light along the narrow road through Castello di Ama, Italy

While visiting a vineyard/winery here I learned some things I would not have expected about this part of Italy. I’m used to California’s wine country, especially the areas in northern California where a lot of the vineyards seem to be either on hillsides of quite often in flat river valleys. Here, at least among the vineyards around the area where I made this photograph, the vineyards are on relatively steep hillsides and, as I discovered, on soil that is more rock than dirt. There was a place where the path was well below the level of the soil surface and a section of the rock wall had been removed to show the earth down perhaps 6-8 feet deep… and it was almost entirely rock.

Speaking of these paths, I made this photograph along an old, narrow, winding “road” between the buildings of a now-isolated village. It was midday, when the light becomes much brighter and sharper, though still with that bit of softness that seems to be the norm here. The high sun angle and bright light cast a strong shadow across the wall at the left and part of the part, while a few scattered clouds floated by overhead.

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