Tag Archives: clouds

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Before Dawn, Wetlands

January 8, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pre-dawn clouds and misty light above the Sierra and San Joaquin Valley wetlands

This photograph comes from one of my first trips of this season to photograph migratory birds in California’s Great Central Valley, an endeavor that has come to fascinate me more and more over the past few years. Somewhere in the post-Thanksgiving time frame I become aware that the birds have begun to return, and I soon find time to be out there on beautiful, cold, and often foggy days to photograph them and the winter landscape.

On this season’s first trip I arrived, as I always do, before dawn. The range of possible conditions out here is quite large, and I might find anything from dense fog to rain to perfectly clear skies. This morning brought some high clouds, especially to the east over the Sierra crest, and some scattered pockets of fog. At first the cloudiness made me wonder if there would even be much of a sunrise, but as the light began to appear the sky above the clouds became a bit more

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

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

Goose-Filled Dawn Sky

January 5, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Geese fill the winter dawn sky above a San Joaquin Valley marsh

This is another photograph from our New Year’s Day visit to the migratory birds of California’s San Joaquin Valley. A group of us, photographers and painters and friends, made a rendezvous in the pre-dawn darkness. We were surprised to hear almost no birds in this place, where more typically we are greeted by the sounds of many thousands of them as soon as we get out of our cars. Eventually we found geese at a nearby set of ponds along the roadway.

The number of geese seemed to have diminished since my last visit a few weeks earlier, but before long groups of them began to arrive, mostly flying in from a southerly direction before setting down on the ponds. Eventually the crowd reached a more typical size, with thousands of the birds in a large flock. And, predictably, at some point something set them off, and almost all of them took to the air at once, in a swirling cloud of honking and squawking, and they flew a few circles above the ponds before heading off to more distant points.

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

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

Cranes, Dusk Sky

December 27, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sandhill cranes return in dusk light above the San Joaquin Valley

It sometimes seems odd to me that as the day comes to an end out here where I photograph birds, things seem to both slow down and speed up. The slowing down is the natural consequence of the daylight coming to an end, with my own awareness that a long day of photography that began well before dawn is soon to conclude, and the quieting of some of the natural occupants of this environment. The speeding up comes from certain events that take place suddenly and evolve quickly, along with the potential for several of them to occur simultaneously.

Very late in the afternoon I made a quick circuit of the area where I was photographing, trying to make a few final full daylight photographs and identifying locations where certain dusk events might be more likely — a landing by cranes, a sudden departure of geese. I identified a spot out along the levee loop where a decent sized flock of snow geese (and perhaps some Ross’s geese?) had settled in close to the perimeter road, and less than a half hour before actual sunset I was back there and ready to photograph. For some time things were very quite nearby. The geese mostly sat still in the shallow water near reeds, and I had time to compose photographs that were essentially landscapes with birds. As I was working on one of these I saw, far off in the distance beyond a roadway, that a huge flock of geese had lifted off and was wheeling in circles. Ah, well, I wasn’t going to get to photograph that flock close-up on this evening! Before long I sensed a restlessness in the smaller flock near me and, sure enough, groups soon began to lift off suddenly and head south and west — first smaller groups, and soon almost the entire remaining flock. When this happens I transition immediately from the slow and leisurely “landscape with birds” photography to working quickly and making instant decisions about what to photograph and how to photograph it. As I tracked these birds into the distance I began to notice lines of cranes heading back to one of their favorite spots perhaps a quarter-mile away. Using a long lens I tracked them as they crossed the cloud-textured sunset sky.

Photographs: Southern California

Hollywood

December 22, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Hollywood sign and antennas

Yes. That sign. I suppose that everyone (probably) needs a photograph of the thing and, believe it or not, this is my first. There I was. There the sign was. The light was attractive. I photographed it. ;-)

During a four-day visit to Southern California we ended up making a drive up north to central Los Angeles to visit a museum, and since I had never been to the Griffith Observatory before — really! — we decided to correct that. In the late afternoon we headed to Griffith Park with, or so it seemed, about half of the population of the Los Angeles basin. We eventually caught a shuttle and soon found ourselves among the crowd at the observatory. Crowds aside, it is quite a place… and there, off to the right, was the famous sign. As something of an iconophobe, I have to admit that I did not realize that it would be visible from here!

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: clouds

Before Dawn, Wetlands

Goose-Filled Dawn Sky

Cranes, Dusk Sky

Hollywood

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