Tag Archives: clouds

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

Cranes and Geese, Sunset, Reflecting Pond

January 31, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cranes fly through evening sky above geese in a San Joaquin Valley pond.

I made this photograph on New Year’s Day 2014. Two years ago it seemed like a good idea to begin the new year by greeting its first dawn in the San Joaquin Valley, and sharing the experience with thousands of migratory birds and a few like-minded friends. Getting there was a stretch this year – late the previous night I had arrived home from a week in New York City, and getting up four hours later to drive two hours in the dark was going to be a challenge. But I made it and after photographing through the morning I thought that I might just head home. In the early afternoon we broke off from the photography and went to nearby town to grab something to eat, and by the time we were done it was only an hour or less until the evening “show” would begin back in the wetlands, so I shelved by early departure plans and headed back into the field.

I’m glad I did. It turned out to be a very beautiful evening, with many thousands of birds and with an unexpectedly beautiful sky. Often when it seems a bit gray and “blah” in the late afternoon, the evening light can end up illuminating this thick atmosphere, turning it both colorful and near-transparent. That is what happened here as I was photographing a large group of Ross’s geese that had settled in on the wetlands near this small tree. As the light diminished, I hoped for a fly-in of the sandhill cranes, which can be one of the most magical moments of any day in this area. Unlike the geese, which tend toward raucous and unpredictable behavior, the sandhill cranes seem to show up in large groups right at dusk, mostly gliding smoothly above the ponds as they head for their landing spots.

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

Sunset Fly-In

January 2, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Ross’s Geese and Snow Geese settle in for the evening at California Central Valley wetlands

This is a sort of New Years post – the first 2014 photograph to share – but my “2013 Favorite Photographs” post is yet to come. Watch for it later today.

Last year a group of friends decided that we couldn’t imagine a better way to welcome the new year than to assemble along the edge of a San Joaquin Valley marsh before first light, listening to the raucous sound of thousands of geese and cranes, to watch the first dawn of the year through the inevitable Central Valley tule fog, and then to spend the day making photographs. This year several of us resolved to make this an annual tradition and, although not all who came last year could make it, we again assembled at the familiar spot early on New Years Day. (It was a double challenge for me, as I arrived in back California from New York City barely more than 5 hours before my alarm would go off for the drive to the valley. At least the time zone change was on my side, or so I tried to convince myself at 4:00 AM by repeating, “It is already 7:00 in New York!”)

I drove in to the refuge in earliest pre-dawn light and met my friends David and Charlotte, who had arrived a few minutes earlier and were photographing the fog drifting along the edge of the wetlands. We exchanged New Years greetings and listened to the wild sounds of geese and cranes coming from all directions, and then began the (pleasant) work of finding dawn photography locations. We photographed through the morning and then, perhaps because this was a New Years Day “photographers’ holiday” ended up spending an inordinate but very pleasant amount of time standing around talking as the midday light became less conducive to photography. I had decided that I would probably leave for home after the morning shoot, but I succumbed to the invitation to join Dave and Char for a quick lunch in a nearby town, and when we finished eating (and, yes, again, talking a lot ;-) it was late enough that I figured I would make one more pass through the wetlands. I wasn’t certain how the evening would play out photographically, since friends visiting the area the previous day had reported finding few geese and because high clouds seemed to be turning the sky a bit gray and murky. The first good omen was finding a very large group of geese in a pond close to an access road. I stopped here a bit more than a half hour before sunset to photograph the evening fly-in, selecting a location that would place any evening color opposite the geese. Before long the gray sky began to pick up some color and as the process continued more geese arrived. Then, a bit earlier than usual, one of the most impressive events of any evening in this valley occurred – the arrival of thousands of high-flying sandhill cranes, passing overhead and circling in the fading light. A few of them appear against the sky in this post-sunset photograph of the colorful sky, a flock of geese below a lone tree, and the reflecting surface of a flooded field. Soon there was no longer enough light to photograph, and I simply stood by the car and listened to the sound of the cranes and geese until it was time to go.

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

Pre-Dawn Light, San Joaquin Valley

December 27, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pre-dawn light and thin fog above marshland in California’s San Joaquin Valley

A foggy fall landscape with birds from California’s San Joaquin Valley, where I often go at tho time of year to photograph migratory birds and the often foggy, cold, and damp places they live. The region is largely agricultural, with lots of cattle being raised nearby – but in the winter the pastures are flooded and a huge variety of birds can be found here, including geese, herons, white pelicans, cranes, ibises, egrets, and more.

As I usually do, I left the San Francisco Bay area very early in the morning, well before dawn, so that I could arrive here before the sun came up. I had already been shooting a while when I stopped next to this pond where a small group of coots (?) were clustered together. I had been looking for some sort of foreground focus around which to build a photograph that included those interesting clouds over in the direction of the Sierra Nevada, clouds that here are just beginning to pick up the dawn light that had yet to reach the valley, were there was still a light blanket of fog.

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

Sunset Virga, San Joaquin Valley

December 24, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Momentary sunset light on virga and clouds of an incoming late-autumn weather front above California’s San Joaquin Valley

As I mentioned in my previous post, this mid-December day was one of variable weather and sky conditions that ranged from fog to clear to mixed clouds to the arrival of a weak weather front that completely block the light at times. We spent the entire day mostly photographing migratory birds in this wetland area, but also making some landscape photographs when the birds were less available.

After a lunch break at a nearby town we returned for the afternoon and evening light and the prospective fly-in of geese and cranes. We always have an eye on the sky, trying to imagine and predict what the evening might bring, and the prospects did not look too encouraging. I love clouds… but out here too many clouds can simply kill the light that can otherwise become very interesting late in the day. As the afternoon wore on towards evening, it looked more and more like the light was perhaps not going to improve, and bands of thick clouds frequently blocked the sun, leaving mostly a sort of gray haze where we were. Occasionally the clouds did thin and we had moments of interesting light and sky, but overall things seemed to be heading in the gray direction. (This happens. If you shoot enough you will have days of utterly astonishing light, balanced by days when the light is simply blah. You make what you can from the light that you find, and usually something works.) Then, to our complete surprise, a few beams of sunset light found their way through small breaks in the clouds to our west, and for perhaps five minutes we had a light show as cloud bottoms and virga were gently lit from below, turning shades of red and pink and purple.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: clouds

Cranes and Geese, Sunset, Reflecting Pond

Sunset Fly-In

Pre-Dawn Light, San Joaquin Valley

Sunset Virga, San Joaquin Valley

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