Tag Archives: great

Photographs: England, Photographs: Night

River Thames Reflections, Night

August 4, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Nighttime lights from the Southwark Bridge reflect on the surface of London’s River Thames.

As we walked back across the Millennium Bridge toward the north bank of the River Thames in the evening light, I saw many colorful lights on bridges, boats, and buildings that were reflected in the surface of the river and which stood out against the somewhat hazy blue hour atmosphere. This bridge provides a great location for photographing the reflections since it is, obviously, right above the water and because it is easy to align reflections with various other elements by moving back and forth across the bridge. In this photograph most of the interesting reflections are coming from the Southwark Bridge, with the white lights on the Tower Bridge just visible further along the river.

On a technical note, I relied on a very different sort of photographic gear on this trip. Since our plan was to keep our luggage down to carry-on size – for a three-week trip to three countries – we decided to take some radical steps to downsize the amount of camera equipment we would carry. I normally shoot a full frame DSLR and typically carry a very large tripod and multiple (sometimes many!) large lenses. My normal load of camera gear alone, at least for car-based shooting, would exceed the carry-limits that we would deal with on our international flights – and would also weigh me down more than I wanted during a trip that would include a lot of walking. So for this trip I left my Big Gear at home and instead carried a Fujifilm X-E!, a small cropped sensor mirrorless camera, and only three lenses: a 14mm prime, a 35mm prime, and a 55-200mm zoom. All of this fit in a small messenger bag with room left over for my (small) laptop and lots of other necessities. I bring this up because this photograph was shot handheld with this camera, using the 35mm prime – in a situation and of a subject where I would normally assume that a tripod was necessary. (I’ll be writing more about the experience with this alternate gear soon at my blog.)

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

Egret Quartet

July 16, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A quartet of egrets on a foggy morning in a green late-winter pasture in California’s San Joaquin Valley.

This gang of egrets was politely waiting for me near the far corner of a wildlife refuge that I had visited on the last-winter morning, hoping to photograph (mostly) geese and cranes. The geese and cranes were a bit shy, and as I worked my way around the refuge’s perimeter road I wasn’t finding a lot of opportunities to photograph them. I could hear them, especially the sandhill cranes, but they seemed to be too far off, hidden by fog, or behind the tules. But I wasn’t in a hurry, so I took my time, stopping and watching and listening. By this later point in the season the initial astonishment at the huge numbers of birds had worn off a bit, and rather than jumping out of the car to photograph huge flocks of birds, as if they were the first and only flocks in the world, had given way to a bit more patience.

It had appeared that it would be a clear morning as I drove toward this location, but just moments before I arrived – a bit before dawn – the cool and damp air did begin to form some fog. This was fine with me, as I’d rather have a bit of interesting foggy atmosphere than have perfectly clear sky. But the fog was relatively short-lived – not like the midwinter fogs that can cover these places for days on end. By the time I finally worked my way over to this spot the sun was starting to break through and the fog was thinning. Because of their stark white color, lone egrets are often easy to spot from a good distance, and four of them clustered together were impossible to overlook. As I edged up closer to them, remaining in my vehicle so as not to spook them, they simply stood there, occasionally swinging their heads one way or another. Before I could make this photograph I first had to wait for an unruly band of red-winged blackbirds to depart, and then I waited for the four birds to move their heads in what seemed to me to be interesting directions.

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

Great Blue Heron, Foggy Pasture

March 24, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A lone great blue heron overlooks a pasture in clearing fog, San Joaquin Valley, California

I photographed this critter on my first bird photography trip of the season in the Central Valley of California, during which I visited several wildlife refuges in the Merced area. In typical Central Valley form, the day started out very foggy – tule fog hugged the valley floor and obscured the view in many places. By late morning most of the fog had dissipated, and hazy light came through the still-humid cool-season atmosphere.

When I first arrived at this refuge, the fog was so thick that it was more or less impossible to photograph the birds – though I tried! Eventually I reconsidered and did some landscape photography in the mysterious atmosphere of the thick fog. As it finally began to clear, I turned my attention back to the migratory birds. I found this solitary blue heron in a pasture at the far corner of the refuge, and I used my car as a “blind” to eventually pull almost parallel to it on the gravel access road, then stopping to make a series of telephoto shots with the foggy pasture as the backdrop.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Base of the Organ, Morning

December 3, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn foliage begins to change along the base of the Organ and on the slopes of the Great White Throne, Zion Canyon

During three visits to Zion National Park and Zion Canyon during the past year, the area around “Big Bend” in the canyon has become a bit of a fixation for me. There is a lot to see and photograph here, and the lighting changes a lot during the course of the day. The bend in the canyon creates a sort of closed-in effect, and it is possible to focus both on the very small features and on the very large, including the canyon walls and more distant examples of vegetation climbing up the cliff walls.

Two major features make an appearance in this photograph. The near, darker columns are the base of a feature called “The Organ” that sits near the apex of the horseshoe bend that the canyon makes here as the Virgin River goes downstream. Beyond that are the huge walls of “The Great White Throne,” a towering feature in this portion of the canyon whose color is lighter than that of some of the other reddish rock cliffs nearby. I made this photograph fairly early in the morning before any direct sunlight had begun to affect the scene and when a certain amount of haze was still in the air. The foliage at the base of The Organ is just beginning to show the tiniest bit of autumn color, but higher on the cliffs of The Great White Throne there are trees that are well along on this transition.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: great

River Thames Reflections, Night

Egret Quartet

Great Blue Heron, Foggy Pasture

Base of the Organ, Morning

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