Tag Archives: island

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

White Pelican Flock

February 2, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of white pelicans settles on an island in the San Joaquin Valley, California

It probably should be a bit embarrassing to admit that there is a lot I don’t know about birds and other kinds of wildlife, but at least I continue to get the joy of learning new things because of that! I’ve been a fan of the coastal California pelicans for some time, often photographing them along the Pacific shoreline. I’ve learned a bit about their habits, to the point that I know some particular places and conditions in which I’m likely to find them, and I’ve built a bit of a collection of photographs of these birds. But I did not know that I would find pelicans at this Central Valley location, much less that they would yet a different sort of pelican than I have known about from the coast.

On this early December morning it was tremendously foggy when we arrived. We figured it would clear – eventually – but at first it was just about impossible to find birds to photograph since the distance that they wanted to keep between themselves and curious photographers seemed to be just about equal to the limits of visibility in the fog. We could hear birds, but were barely able to see them. At one point we stopped for a moment to roll down the windows and listen and I looked up to see a completely silent flock of large birds briefly though faintly overhead as they flew through the fog. I couldn’t figure out what they were, though I recall thinking that they were pelican-like. Some time later, perhaps hours, another member of our group asked if I had seen the pelicans, and it all came together. They had spotted “white pelicans” (which I didn’t know about) in very nearly the same spot where I had seen this flock fly past. So, on a later pass around the refuge perimeter road I was watching out for them, and they turned out to be easy to see in the clearer air and better light.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Rat Rock Island, Hills

January 21, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Rat Rock Island and hills of the north San Francisco Bay

This remarkable little island sits just a short distance from the shoreline along the northern San Francisco Bay. Several things contribute to its visual appeal. It is unexpected, in that it is not exactly common to find such islands in this bay. It seems that what formed the island might have been a process similar to one found in coastal areas with much rougher seas, where rocky peninsulas are eventually cut off from the shoreline. The area is very quiet, in contrast to the busy north bay areas you typically might drive through to get here, and the main sounds are those of shore birds. The view beyond the island is expansive – the far side of the bay is distant enough that you the hills are little more than a think break along the horizon, and mostly you see sky and water. The shape of the island is almost but not quite symmetrical, and the little bonsai-like trees on the “summit” echo the curve of the island.

I used a nine-stop neutral density filter so that I could get a relatively long ten second exposure for this photograph. The idea was to let the slight motion of the water blur and create a smooth, glassy quality. (If the clouds had been moving faster, they might also have been blurred. Although it probably isn’t apparent in the photograph, this image is partially the result of quite a bit of work during the post-processing phase.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Rat Rock Island, Sky

January 10, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Rat Rock Island and winter sky, China Camp, California

I ended up at China Camp in connection with a “photo walk” in the San Francisco Bay Area that was devoted to long exposure photography. Photo walks have recently become quite a phenomenon, especially with the rise of Google Plus communities formed around photography. A week hardly passes around here without the announcement of another such event. Photographically they can be a bit of a mixed bag if you already know the area, but the provide fun opportunities to meet a lot of photographers of all sorts, often including a few folks you might have heard of but never met. When I go, I frequently end up shooting a bit apart from the main crowd, and that is what initially happened here… though that didn’t last!

This little island is a fairly well-known feature in the Bay Area, and I have seen beautiful photographs of it in the past. It is also not all that impressive in person, though with the right light and atmosphere it can be the center for very interesting photographic interpretations. I arrived at this location before other “photo-walkers” arrived, so I briefly had the place to myself. I tried a few things with this subject, ranging from some very tight shots that don’t include the whole island to some that used very short focal lengths to reduce its apparent size and to then set it in a much larger surrounding landscape. This is probably the most straightforward composition of the bunch. Since the focus of this day was to be “long exposure” photography, I was playing around with that idea a bit, and this shot is indeed a rather long exposure.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

Rat Rock Island, Winter Sky

January 8, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Clouds from a dissipating winter storm above Rat Island and the northern San Francisco Bay

For such a beautiful little island, this place certainly has a nasty name! I have intended to visit this place for a few years now, but had never quite gotten around to it – so I used a San Francisco photowalk devoted to “long exposure photography” as the impetus to finally make it. We had started much earlier in the morning in the Marin Headlands, photographing San Francisco Bay, and at that time a winter weather front was making its way through the area and producing a rather cloudy dawn. Leaving there, the group headed to the small state park where this scene is located. I arrived there before almost anyone else, so I headed to this location and had it to myself for a few minutes.

The previous evening some had been discussing the weather prospects, and I had pointed out that often the most interesting skies come on the heels of awful weather, and this moment serves as an example. An hour earlier and a few miles away, the overcast was thick and gray, but here the trailing edge of the storm was bringing layers of clouds that were thinning and allowing the early morning light through. But this quality of sky and light lasted only a short time, and less than an hour later these beautiful early morning clouds were largely gone.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: island

Rat Rock Island, Hills

Rat Rock Island, Sky

Rat Rock Island, Winter Sky

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