Tag Archives: great

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Great Egret Portrait

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Great Egret Portrait
“Great Egret Portrait” — A “head shot” of a great egret.

Great egrets are a common sight here in California, from the coastline to inland wetlands and creeks. Their distinctive white plumage makes them stand out in almost any landscape. It doesn’t hurt that they are quite large, too — the largest of several different egret species. I photographed this one at a wetland area in California’s Central Valley on a foggy day that softened the light.

In some ways it is easy to photograph them, but in others it can be tricky. It is a bit easier to fill the frame with an egret since the birds are large. They also tolerate human presence… up to a point. So, it isn’t too hard to photograph them on the ground. Catching them in flight is a different matter. Most often they will be flying away from me, and when they take off they often do so suddenly and without much warning.

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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. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

First Light — Tufa, Clouds, Mountains

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First Light — Tufa, Clouds, Mountains
“First Light — Tufa, Clouds, Mountains” — The first dawn light on Mono Lake tufa towers, with desert mountains and morning ing clouds in the distance.

The landscape of Mono Lake and Mono Basin seems reduced to essentials: rocks, mountains, water, sky, light. And all of this is in a place of uncommon quiet and immense space — it is difficult to truly comprehend the scale of the basin. These qualities seem especially strong if you come down from the peaks and intimate landscapes of the nearby Sierra Nevada.

I was out there early on this July morning — having literally “come down” from those peaks near the Sierra crest in predawn darkness. Rather than getting close to the famous tufa formations, my goal was to photograph the lake and its surroundings from a distance, using long lenses to bring together some of the close features and distant elements of the landscape.

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. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Mono Lake, Mountains, Morning

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Mono Lake, Mountains, Morning
“Mono Lake, Mountains, Morning” — Early morning autumn light on Mono Lake and distant desert mountains.

Part of the challenge of photographing a familiar subject is finding a different perspective on it. This is especially true with “iconic” subjects that everyone has seen, and which we know by way of familiar views. If you think about any famous place you can probably visualize the scenes I’m thinking of — familiar views of familiar things. (I’m not against them. In fact, it is an interesting challenge to try to make those views different.) There are several familiar approaches to photographing Mono Lake. Yes, I’ve done them, too!

But this is not one of those familiar views. For one thing, the camera position here is not one that most people visiting the lake would think of or even know about. It is a pretty good distance from the lake — in fact the photograph was made with a very long lens. It is also elevated, up in mountains where sage meets aspens. I photographed in the early morning on a clear day, when the low morning sunlight was angling across the landscape from the right.

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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Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Clearing Sunset Storm, Mono Basin

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Clearing Sunset Storm, Mono Basin
“Clearing Sunset Storm, Mono Basin” — A late-summer storm above the Mono Basin breaks up at sunset.

Sometimes when conditions don’t look promising where I am I make some guesses, rely on hunches, consider past experience, and head off in a different direction at the last minute. On this evening I was up near the crest of the Eastern Sierra, hoping for a break in the clouds and some interesting light. But it did not look like that was going to happen, so I jumped in my vehicle and headed down to the East Side and looked for long views that might include the landscape and what I hoped would be interesting end-of-day light.

Arriving there, not a lot was happening. The crest was socked in by clouds that obscured the peaks and blocked the light from the west. Where I was it was fairly gray. But I know that it isn’t unusual for some clearing to occur near sunset — and if it happens colorful light can suffuse the landscape. I had to wait until nearly the last minute, but the light finally arrived. Gaps appeared in the clouds and beams of colorful light began to stretch across the scene. In this photograph the clouds are above desert mountains and the Mono Lake Basin.

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: Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.