Tag Archives: clouds

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

Two Sandhill Cranes, Winter Sky

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Two Sandhill Cranes, Winter Sky
Two Sandhill Cranes, Winter Sky

Two Sandhill Cranes, Winter Sky. Merced National Wildlife Reserve, California. February 21, 2011.© Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of two sandhill cranes taking to the air against a cloud-filled winter sky above the Merced National Wildlife Reserve.

This is another photograph from my detour to the Merced National Wildlife Reserve as I returned from my February trip to Death Valley. I arrived late in the day as a winter storm was just beginning to clear, and at times the migratory birds flew in front of a cloud-filled sky that ranged from dark and ominous to being colorfully lit by sunset light.

I chose to render this photograph in black and white for several reasons. First, to be quite honest, I wasn’t very fond of the particular coloration of the clouds behind these birds! However, in black and white the shapes and glowing quality of the sky seem to work better in this case. And from this distance the sandhill cranes’ coloration is subtle enough that I don’t feel that much is lost by going to monochrome.

I think I have mentioned earlier that when I photograph birds like these in flight I try to keep my eye not only on the birds but also on the background. I don’t have any control at all over what appears behind them, but I do have control over when I press the shutter – and as they pass in front of clouds and other background elements I try to time shots to place the birds in interesting compositions relative to these subjects. Every so often I like to think that I actually succeed! :-)

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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

Seven Sandhill Cranes in Flight

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Seven Sandhill Cranes in Flight
Seven Sandhill Cranes in Flight

Seven Sandhill Cranes in Flight. Merced National Wildlife Reserve, California. February 21, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Panoramic photograph of seven sandhill cranes in flight above the Merced National Wildlife Area against a sky full of clearing evening storm clouds.

As I wrote when I posted the first in this series recently, on my return drive from Death Valley to the San Francisco Bay Area I realized that I had enough time to stop at the Merced National Wildlife Reserve just before sunset, so I altered my route so that I could drive out on Sandy Mush Road (I still love writing that road name!) to the Reserve and do a little bit of photography. Although I’ve done a bit of wildlife photography, it isn’t my main thing and this is the first year that I’ve headed out to the migratory bird areas of California’s Great Central Valley – so this is a relatively new experience for me.

I had seen video and photographs of the morning “fly out” and evening “fly in” at several locations in the Valley and was hoping that I might get to witness something like this. That didn’t happen, though at one point I saw and heard the event taking place at pond a ways north of the road I had stopped on. I’m getting the impression that this experiences probably requires some persistence and repeat visits. However, I did find a field that was filled with scores of sandhill cranes. I quietly stopped my car, grabbed the camera with a long lens, and got out on the side away from the field and watched quietly. Even these attempts at quiet weren’t enough as the birds began to edge a ways away from the roadside edge of the field before they quieted again and went about their business.

Before long a few small groups began to take flight. I was fortunate that a storm had just passed through and the remnant clouds were beginning to clear in the west, both providing a dramatic background in that direction and allowing a bit of colorful light to strike clouds directly above and to my east. This brings up an observation about photographing birds – admittedly from a photographer who isn’t quite an expert on this but who likes to try to learn… thinking about what is behind and around the birds is often as important as getting the birds themselves into the frame. I like to say that in this series I was thinking about the clouds almost as much as I was thinking about the birds. As I continue to practice and learn how to photograph these animals in flight, I find that I can begin to simultaneously think about keeping them framed in the viewfinder in interesting ways and remain aware of what else is in the frame as I pan.

Special thanks to my friend Tom Clifton for helping me identify some of the other birds I photographed on this visit.

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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.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II (at B&H)
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM at 400mm (at B&H)
ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/3200 second

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Morning Sky Reflected in Desert Stream

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Morning Sky Reflected in Desert Stream
Morning Sky Reflected in Desert Stream

Morning Sky Reflected in Desert Stream. Death Valley National Park, California. February 21, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of water from a salt spring reflecting cloudy morning sky above Death Valley.

Moments before I made this stark and, I think, desolate photograph of the shallow stream from a salt spring flowing slowly over the flats of Death Valley and reflecting the light from morning clouds, the Panamint Range mountains at the left side of the frame had been briefly lit by colorful sunrise light. But this light lasted only a couple minutes and shortly everything went largely gray.

The patterns of the very shallow and slowly flowing water as they spread out across the flats and reflected the light from the cloud filled sky intrigued me as soon as I arrived at this location. But before I made this photograph I had taken a different approach, positioning the camera down very low and very close to the water so that its reflective surface filled a larger portion of the frame and then lining things up to catch the first light on the Panamints and its reflection. But when that passed so quickly, it seemed like the flat and gray effect could also make an interesting photograph. When I made the exposure I wasn’t quite certain, but I think I was leaning towards a black and white rendition of the scene. Frankly, there wasn’t a lot of color to work with! The sky was mostly clouded over, though there was a hint of faded blue in a few spots. Any color in the Panamints was muted by the distance and haze. The mud is essentially gray and white (where salt has formed) and the water held less color than the sky!

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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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Zabriskie Point Badlands, Morning Snow on the Panamint Range

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Zabriskie Point Badlands, Morning Snow on the Panamint Range
Zabriskie Point Badlands, Morning Snow on the Panamint Range

Zabriskie Point Badlands, Morning Snow on the Panamint Range. Death Valley National Park, California. February 20, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light on fresh snow on the summit of the Panamint Range with Zabriskie Point Badlands in the foreground, Death Valley National Park.

After getting being frustrated by falling snow earlier in the morning when I tried to photograph dawn at Dantes View I headed back down to lower terrain. (Although I was not successful in photographing at Dantes View and, in fact, turned back before the summit in dense clouds and falling snow, it was quite an interesting visit!) I stopped along the way and made some photographs before arriving at Zabriskie Point.

At this point I no longer reflexively photograph at Zabriskie, though I will if something special or unusual is happening with the conditions. Having been frustrated in my original plans, I figured I might as well take a look around since I was there. I left the camera gear in my car and walked up the hill to the famous overlook to see what I could see. The dawn light – if there had even been any on this cloudy morning – was long gone, though a few photographers were still hanging out. As I looked about I noticed two things. First, the clouds were just beginning to thin over the Panamint range. While the summit of Telescope Peak was still socked in – it appeared to be snowing there – light was beginning to break through gaps in the clouds above the east side of the range and interesting shadows were appearing below the snow line. Second, the partially cloudy conditions were softening the light right in the Zabriskie/Gower Gulch area and the light in some of my favorite small gullies to the right of the observation area was looking somewhat interesting. (I have made a project of photographing them with a long lens.)

With no other specific plan, and two potential subjects right here, I followed one of those “laws of photography” that says shoot the thing you see now rather than continuing to wander around hoping that some other miracle crops up. (Sometimes this is great advice. Other times it is dead wrong!) I walked back down the hill to my car, grabbed my gear, and walked back up. I first spent some time photographing the nearby gullies. (I think I have a couple of interesting images of them that will appear here eventually.) But I quickly turned my attention to the interesting weather and light across the Valley, thinking about how I might photograph this wild and rugged scene without making it look like another Zabriskie Point image. I decided to use a relatively long focal length lens – which was already on the camera for shooting the gullies anyway – and try to fill the entire frame with a combination of close and far mountains and snow and clouds in the morning light.

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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.