Tag Archives: field

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Wildlife

Snow Geese and Farm Buildings

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Snow Geese and Farm Buildings - Snow geese fly low past a Skagit Valley farm, Washington.
Snow geese fly low past a Skagit Valley farm, Washington.

Snow Geese and Farm Buildings. Skagit Valley, Washington. February 19, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Snow geese fly low past a Skagit Valley farm, Washington.

Back in February I was fortunate to be able to spend a day photographing migratory (and other) birds in the lower Skagit Valley area in the state of Washington. For me the primary draw was the snow geese, since I had just spent several days photographing Ross’s geese in California’s Central Valley, along with the beautiful trumpeter swans that hang out in the fields in this part of Washington. I had also been alerted to the presence of bald eagles in the area.

I drove up very early in the day from the Seattle area, arriving at just about the time that would have been sunrise… if it had not been a typical gray Washington day. I passed through a small town by the highway and then headed out into this farm country, immediately spotting scattered groups of trumpeter swans, whose large white bodies stand out clearly against the intense green of the new growth in the fields. However, all of these birds were too far from the roads, so I moved on, soon passing what looked like a country produce stand in front of a fallow field that where there were some geese. I stopped – and immediately heard that striking sound of the huge flocks of geese – and got out my camera gear to see what I could do. At this point I looked around a bit more and saw flock after flock of birds high in the sky to the west and heading this direction. Very soon all of these flocks began land on this very field where I had fortuitously stopped and in minutes there were tens of thousands of geese on the ground and many more flying routes above and around the field.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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

Row of Trees, Evening

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Row of Trees, Evening - A row of bare trees stands next to a pond in evening light at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge, Central Valley, California.
A row of bare trees stands next to a pond in evening light at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge, Central Valley, California.

Row of Trees, Evening. Central Valley, California. February 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A row of bare trees stands next to a pond in evening light at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge, Central Valley, California.

While photographing migratory birds in early February at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge in California’s Central Valley, just before sunset there was a lull in the “bird action,” and I realized that I had neglected to photograph much of anything besides the birds. With this in mind, I left the edge of the ponds where we had been shooting, and I took a short walk along a nearby trail that went out into some brushy areas that generally seemed sort of nondescript. Except… I’m fascinated by brushy, scrubby trees and brush and I’m always challenged when it comes to thinking about how to make photographic sense of this subject. In the right light the shapes and subtle colors can be quite interesting, but it can also be tricky to find a composition in the dense growth.

As I walked I passed along a small pond, and at first I noticed the reflection of a tree whose trunk was branching out in many different directions and its mirrored image in the water. Then I saw this row of barren trees, which I assume might have been planted along the levee as some sort of wind break. Their straight forms were tall and parallel, except that here and there this orderly form was broken up by a trunk or branch pointing off in some odd direction and creating a bit of visual dissonance. Since it was the lens I already had on the camera for photographing birds, I made this landscape photo with what might seem to be the least likely of landscape lenses, a 100-400mm zoom!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Ross’s Geese, Winter Evening

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Ross's Geese, Winter Evening - Motion-blurred photograph of low-flying Ross's geese on a winter evening in California's Central Valley.
Motion-blurred photograph of low-flying Ross's geese on a winter evening in California's Central Valley.

Ross’s Geese, Winter Evening. Merced National Wildlife Refuge, California. February 8, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Motion-blurred photograph of low-flying Ross’s geese on a winter evening in California’s Central Valley.

From time to time I experiment with longer exposure photographs of birds in flight. The idea is that allowing the image to blur as the birds move might suggest their constant motion more effectively than the more typical approach of stopping the motion. Here not only was the exposure relatively long (I think it was 1/30 second) but I was shooting with a long telephoto which also amplifies the motion of subject and camera.

I’m thinking of this as a “study” for future photographs of these Ross’s geese and similar birds that will work with this idea of motion blur. Making this shot let me get a bit closer to understanding the most likely times to find the birds lifting off in the evening, and the best time to try to catch this with a bit of the last sunlight before sunset. I was also able to slightly better establish the shutter speed I would like to work with for this kind of image. The idea is to keep just barely enough shape in the birds that you can recognize what they are, but to allow the motion to blur things enough to eliminate the hyper-sharp realistic quality of the scene and to let the motion blur imply something about the actual flying motion of the birds.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Tree and Bird-Filled Morning Sky

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Tree and Bird-Filled Morning Sky - Giant flocks of migratory birds fill the winter sky above the Central Valley of California.
Giant flocks of migratory birds fill the winter sky above the Central Valley of California.

Tree and Bird-Filled Morning Sky. Central Valley, California. January 28, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Giant flocks of migratory birds fill the winter sky above the Central Valley of California.

There are times when the number of migratory birds visible in California’ Central Valley approaches the level of unbelievable. As we photographed them near the end of January, at one point we noticed that there are almost always more birds than you think you see. Your attention might be caught by a formation of birds flying not too far above. But if you look beyond them you might see another formation up higher. And if you look more closely you might find even more birds higher and further away. For me it is common to review a photograph that I made of one grouping only to discover many, many more that I had not even seen when I made the exposure.

During a lull in the action directly overhead, I looked a bit further out to the east and noticed what might best be described as a “cloud of birds” rising from an area perhaps a mile or more away. At first the cloud stuck together, but soon it began to thin and separate into smaller groups. If you look more closely at this little jpg version of the image, you may still be able to see even more birds than were apparent at first glance. The sidelight on the tree and the plants growing around the pond comes from very early morning sunlight shortly after dawn.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.