Tag Archives: clouds

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

Cranes in Silhouette

Image December 16, 2023 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of lesser sandhill cranes in flight is silhouetted against clouds in the Central Valley autumn sky.

This photograph comes from the morning of my first-of-the-season trip to photograph migratory birds in central California. This subject — including both the birds and their landscape — is a focus from November through the beginning of March. My subjects include geese, herons, ibises, egrets, raptors, “little brown birds,” and sandhill cranes. In this photograph a small group of cranes is silhouetted against an autumn morning sky filled with scattered clouds.

Because this visit was early in the season, there were few geese around. Later I’ll turn more of my attention to them — mainly the Ross’s and snow geese, but others, too. But the cranes had already arrived in great numbers, and they were pretty much the main attraction on this visit.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Storm Clouds, Trees in Silhouette

Image December 6, 2023 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

East slope Sierra Nevada trees silhouetted against clouds and rain of a passing autumn storm.

This is the wonderful sort of weather that wasn’t in the forecast and which catches you by surprise. It had been a sunny day with just a few clouds floating around when this cell appeared to the east of the Sierra crest. I hadn’t really been paying attention to it until I stopped here and looked toward basin and range country to see streamers of virga (rain that doesn’t reach the ground) falling from the building clouds.

It was late in the day when I made this photograph. The sun was at my back as I looked east, and long shadows from Sierra crest peaks were already falling across my position and these nearby trees. I was in this spot mostly to photograph aspen trees, but this panorama of desert mountain terrain beyond the east slope of the Sierra was arresting.

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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Hudson Yards Towers

Image December 3, 2023 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A cluster of tall urban towers at the Hudson Yards complex, Manhattan.

There is a phenomenal range of photographic subjects in New York City: the natural scenes in Central Park, street life, and architecture old and new. For reasons relating to the season, our location in Manhattan, and more I ended up making quite a few “natural landscape” images in Central Park. But we did spend time elsewhere, too, including on a long walk that took us through the Hudson Yards development. My feelings about the place are complicated, for reasons I won’t go into here, but it does present some interesting architectural forms, including these buildings with reflecting glass surfaces.

I went with black and white in this rendition since I was more interested in the shapes and lines than in presenting of the supposed reality of the place. (The underlying image is full of blue tones and has much less contrast.) I’ve long been fascinated by how malleable monochrome images are in post — we can push and pull them in all sorts of ways that would be far too extreme in most cases with color.

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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Autumn Sunrise, Wetlands

Image December 2, 2023 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

There is a seasonal pattern to my photography. One of my favorite subjects from late fall through winter is the return of migratory birds to California. This year’s first outing was near the end of November, when I spent a day in the Central Valley. This photograph isn’t just (almost) my first photograph of the day, but it is also the seasons first photo of this subject. As I expected, the number of birds was lower than it will be later in the season, but the stillness and quiet of the place at sunrise was no less profound.

If you passed by here during one of those oppressively hot Central Valley summer days, you might never imagine that it could be a beautiful place in the right season and at the ideal time of the day. But the transformations of season and time of day can do amazing things, and the annual arrival of the birds amplifies that here. It didn’t hurt that I was listening to the sound of sandhill cranes passing overhead as I photographed.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: clouds

Storm Clouds, Trees in Silhouette

Hudson Yards Towers

Autumn Sunrise, Wetlands

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