Tag Archives: haze

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

Dawn, New Years Day 2013

January 5, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Dawn light above a San Joaquin Valley marsh on New Years Day, 2013

I didn’t manage to post a real New Years Day photo on New Years Day this year… since I was out and about well before dawn on that morning, thinking that it would be even more fun to greet the new year in the field than to just share a post about it! We were staying in the Sierra foothills and had enjoyed a wonderful New Years eve with friends in the area the evening before. Although we had planned to “call it a night” soon enough to turn in early in anticipation for a pre-5:00 a.m. wake-up call, it was after midnight when we finally got to bed.

We were up at 4:45 – yes, on New Years Day! – and out the door shortly after 5:15, and on our way out into the San Joaquin Valley, where a small group of us assembled at about 6:30 in the darkness. After sleepy “Happy New Year!” wishes we headed off into the first pre-dawn light to look for geese and cranes and other critters. Within a few minutes I stopped along the levee road by these trees to make my first real photograph of the new year as the first light began to turn high clouds over the Sierra a beautiful shade of pink.

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.

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

Butte and Petrified Dunes, Arches National Park

December 30, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light on buttes and petrified dunes, Arches National Park

While I’m fascinated and amazed by the namesake arches in this park and by the monumental sandstone buttes, mesas, fins, canyons, towers, and more… I also find that the light and the atmosphere can produce some of the most interesting subjects in Arches National Park. Because this particular butte and the terrain beyond are seen from a spot that is also excellent for photographing certain other nearby subjects, especially in the early morning, this was not the first time that I photographed this scene – though the atmosphere and light were so different on the two main occasions that you might hardly see them as the same subjects at first.

After photographing some impressive nearby sandstone formations in early morning light, I watched as the sun rose high enough to slant its light across the tops of the low formations known as petrified dunes. This is one of several photographs I made there were largely “about” that light and those dune structures, though in both cases I used them as elements in a larger scene rather than the primary subject. Here the backlit morning haze was thick enough to almost render the furthest buttes in the upper right corner of the frame invisible. They are a good distance away, being on the far side of the canyon of the Colorado River, which is visible in front of the buttes. The large, close butte at the lower left posed a challenge as the “front” side was in shadow. (Though the challenge here was less than the last time when I shot here – on that occasion the backlight was so brilliant that I could keep almost no detail in the front of that butte.)

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.

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

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

Trees and Pasture, Central Valley

December 22, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Hazy light in clearing tule fog on solitary trees in California Central Valley pasture land

This is another in a series that might perhaps be called “accidental landscapes.” We were actually at a wildlife refuge not to photograph landscape subjects but to photograph migratory birds – mostly geese, herons, ibises, cranes, egrets and the like. Part of that activity involves driving around trying to find the darn critters! And sometimes during these drives my eyes wander over to something that is much more like a landscape than a bird. I have photographed this very tree in the past, most recently a matter of weeks earlier when I shot it from a slightly different angle that made it appear more isolated, and when it was full of a flock of red-winged blackbirds.

The first thing that attracted my attention this time was something small, the bit of warm side-light on the trunk of the foreground tree. Seeing that, I wondered how I might come up with a composition that made sense and included this little feature. First, I wanted this tree to fill a good portion of the frame. However that seemed a bit too straightforward, so I just moved around a bit until the more distant near-twin tree was just to the left of the foreground tree, being careful to not let them overlap. The photograph was shot handheld, with the same lens that stayed on my camera all day long, a 100-400mm zoom. We moved on and soon found lots of Ross’s geese on the far side of this pasture.

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

Ross’s Geese, Tree and Marsh

December 20, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A thick flock of Ross’s geese flies above a marsh and a solitary tree in California’s Central Valley

After a full morning (and then some!) of photographing mostly Ross’s geese at a Central Valley wildlife refuge, we took a short break for a mid-afternoon lunch and then hurried back to the refuge by about 3:30 for evening photography. One of the last things we did before taking this break was to briefly assemble at the main overlook near the entrance to the refuge, where we were a bit surprised to see lots of geese settling in on one of the nearby ponds, and from which we could look back and see still more geese at the edges of the pasture where we had been photographing them.

As is often the case on a tule fog day like this one in the Central Valley, while the fog did “clear,” the general haziness never did completely go away. Instead the atmosphere remained mildly opaque, and it glowed in the late afternoon sunlight. Looking west, it was almost hard to see into this glow, but that is the direction we looked to see the pond and beyond it some isolated trees and the wetlands disappearing into the distance. Behind us, back on that pasture, the flock suddenly lifted off all at once and the birds made a large loop or two around us. I could see that they were likely to pass by the far edge of this pond and by the silhouetted tree, so I did a “landscape on the fly,” shooting handheld with a 100-400mm zoom as the birds came into the composition that I quickly found.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: haze

Dawn, New Years Day 2013

Butte and Petrified Dunes, Arches National Park

Trees and Pasture, Central Valley

Ross’s Geese, Tree and Marsh

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