Tag Archives: cows

Feedlot

Feedlot
A series of shelters over a feedlot on a foggy Central Valley winter morning.

Feedlot. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A series of shelters over a feedlot on a foggy Central Valley winter morning.

One of the benefits of photographing in fog is that it can make almost any subject mysterious and moody. Another is that the limited visibilities can mute or eliminate distractions from the visual focus on the elements that are the most interesting. It is hard to imagine a stronger illustration of these principles than a photograph of this particular subject.

I photograph quite a bit in California’s Great Central Valley during the winter months. During much of the year, this is perhaps not an obvious photographic destination (though looking closer may be worthwhile!). But in winter, when dense tule fogs often settle on the landscape, the place can be transformed in magical ways. If you have passed by one of these feedlots on a warm, sunny day… you probably rolled up your windows and held your breath. But morning tule fog on a winter day might can make it worthwhile to stop (while trying hard to ignore the smell!) and make a few photographs.


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.

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Grazing Cattle and Aspen Groves, Conway Summit

Grazing Cattle and Aspen Groves, Conway Summit
Grazing Cattle and Aspen Groves, Conway Summit

Grazing Cattle and Aspen Groves, Conway Summit. Sierra Nevada, California. October 10, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Cattle graze in front of large aspen groves near Conway Summit, California.

Just about anyone who has every photographed aspens in the area around Lee Vining is probably familiar with this location – and I’ve certainly shot there quite a few times. From highway 395 the aspens extend west and up toward the peaks of the Sierra crest, and the at the right hour in the late afternoon the backlight can light up the leaves of the trees. When I visited this time the trees were in transition with some still green, others very colorful, and some almost leafless already. I was also lucky to have some clouds at the end of several cloudless days of photography. (Normal people like perfect blue sky, but photographers are not normal – we tend to like weather!) When I saw the clouds starting to form above the crest early in the afternoon I thought that something interesting might happen later near Conway so I made a point of heading that direction.

This photograph features, of all things, cattle – not my usual subject, perhaps! The area where these aspens grow seems to be at least as much a pasture as it is aspen groves, and I’ve seen cattle grazing in this spot before. (See comments for a note from a member of the family that owns the land.) As the clouds created shadows over the higher slopes in the background, for a moment the sun still hit the foreground trees and these cattle.

This shot also ties in with my recent post on using various focal lengths for landscape photography, in that this photograph was made with what some might regard as an unlikely landscape lens, a 100-400mm zoom! But in this case, this lens at 250mm was just what I needed to more tightly frame the bit of foreground pasture and sunlit trees and compress the distance between them and the shadowed hills beyond.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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