Tag Archives: four

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

Four Ross’s Geese, Sunset Light

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Four Ross's Geese, Sunset Light
Four Ross’s Geese, Sunset Light

Four Ross’s Geese, Sunset Light. San Joaquin Valley, California. January 21, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Four Ross’s geese in flight against the sky in sunset light

I photographed this group of Ross’s geese late in the day, just as golden hour light was beginning to intensify. We had spent the day in the San Joaquin Valley, visiting a couple of wildlife refuges, and returned at the end of the day to the place where we had begun shooting before dawn. We hoped for some combination of evening geese and then a dusk fly-in of sandhill cranes.

The amount of control you have when photographing these birds is minimal. It is up to them to decide where they will settle in, when and in what direction they will fly, and much more. A lot of the process involves doing things that you hope will increase your odds – being in likely spots at likely times, and so forth – then being ready to take advantage of whatever comes your way. The latter requires some sensitivity to how things are developing, some experience with the camera so that you can make decisions quickly and track flying birds that may turn up unexpectedly, and more. The situation with the geese on this evening was a bit unusual, at least in my experience. At this place we have often been able to find very large flocks of the birds late in the day, at which point a reasonable strategy is to position yourself nearby, taking into consideration the direction of the light, possible backgrounds, and the paths they will likely fly. Then you wait, ready to photograph, until the birds decide to do what birds decide to do! With luck, they will lift off in interesting groups, against interesting backdrops, and in good light. On this evening, we were only able to find one relatively small group of Ross’s geese. (We saw other much larger groups in the area, but they were further off and in places inaccessible to us.) So we found out spot nearby and waited, photographing very small groups of them as they lifted off and flow to the north. However, a few groups did an extra loop or two around us, coming back over our position quite low. You never know how the birds will line up, and often they will ether be too separated from one another or else they are so tightly clustered that you get blocked heads or wings that cover other birds. However, this group was polite enough to line themselves up in such a way that as they flew past each of them was completely visible in the evening light.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Wildlife

Trumpeter Swans and Clouds

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Trumpeter Swans and Clouds Trumpeter Swans and Clouds
Trumpeter Swans and Clouds Trumpeter Swans and Clouds

Trumpeter Swans and Clouds. Skagit Valley, Washington. December 3, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Four trumpeter swans on a raining day in Skagit Valley, Washington

I visited the Seattle area in early December for mostly non-photographic purposes, but found myself with with an open schedule on the day when my departing flight was not scheduled to leave until evening. I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to do some photography, so I considered street photography in downtown Seattle (plus a museum visit). Then I remembered that I had shot in Skagit Valley last year at roughly the same time and had found lots of interesting birds to photograph – trumpeter swans, eagles, snow geese, and more.

On this trip I wasn’t exactly equipped for bird photography, at least not the sort I would usually do, but I did have a 70-200mm zoom and I know it is possible to make interesting bird photographs with such a lens. So I was up fairly early for the one hour drive north. It rained off and on during my drive, and it was still mostly cloudy and gray when I arrived to find trumpeter swans in their usual spots on the winter fields. (Later I would also find some snow geese, but I’ll save that story for now.) Typically, I would photograph this subject with my 100-400mm zoom, but having nothing longer than 200mm in my bag, I had to think a bit differently about how to photograph these birds. Several strategies worked. One was to use my rental car as a “blind” and slowly and carefully position myself where they might be close enough to photograph with that lens. Another approach was to basically shoot landscape, but include the birds in the scene. The third option, used in this photograph, was to find a spot along one of the country roads where the birds were likely to pass directly overhead or nearly so and wait. These birds have a style of flight that somehow reminds me of a very large jetliner. The use a very low angle take-off, seeming almost as if they are too massive to climb much faster. But once in flight they are beautiful and graceful with their long necks and generally smooth mode of flight. In this photograph I watched as they passed in front of darker rain clouds before making the exposure, isolating the birds against the clouds and with no frame of reference on the ground.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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.

Deals and Sales

Black Friday Through Cyber Monday Deals at B&H

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I have just updated the Deals Page to include direct links to products featured the Black Friday through Cyber Monday sale at site-sponsor B&H. These prices are valid between now and this coming Monday. Included are:

  • Four-Thirds cameras
  • Nikon, Canon, Sony, Olympus DSLRs/lenses
  • Various small format cameras (e.g. – Canon G12 at $299, etc.)
  • Bags
  • Tripods
  • Lighting
  • Printers
  • Memory
  • More…

See the Deals Page for more information and direct links. (Also, here is a direct link to B&H Black Friday deals.)

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.

Deals and Sales, Software

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4

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Adobe has announced the release of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 (which I will hereafter refer to as “Lightroom 4”), the newest update to the application. For many (probably most) photographers using Adobe tools for their photography, Lightroom is probably the best option. It provides quite a bit of image editing/processing power and flexibility, excellent tools for organizing large photograph collections, and a wide range of effective methods for outputting final images to the web, to video, to various types of print publication, and as photographic prints.

Depending on your situation, the update is available several forms:

(You may use these links to purchase from site-sponsor B&H Photo. Note: Links were broken earlier, but they have now been fixed.)

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.