Tag Archives: island

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Scotland, Photographs: Travel

Sailboats, Oban

Image July 2, 2024 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Oban is a lovely Scottish town — a picturesque spot on the waterfront, with hills and islands all around, fine seafood, good people… and the Oban Whisky Distillery! (Yes, we did the tour, and we bought a bottle as soon as we got back to the states.) There is almost constant boat traffic in the bay in front of the town as fishing boats, small tour boats, sailboats, and ferries come and go.

I made this photograph from McCaig’s Tower, the very old stone structure that sits on a hilltop above the town and offers a remarkable panorama of the surrounding landscape. Shortly after we arrived at the top of the hill a large group of sailboats crossed the bay in front of us, stretching out in a line against the darker land and water.

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.

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

Scroll down to share comments or questions. (Click post title first if viewing on the home page.)

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

Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Winter Geese, Winter Pond

Image February 24, 2024 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

On the best winter days, migratory birds gather by the hundreds of thousands (millions?) up and down California’s Central Valley, especially where the winter wetland ponds form. I first became vaguely aware of this decades ago on a winter drive up the Sacramento Valley on my way to Washington, when for the first time I saw multitudes of birds in the winter sky. Later a chance comment by a friend led me to a location in the delta where birds gather by thousands. Since then, I’ve been addicted to experiencing and photographing this annual wonder.

I made this photograph on a cloudy morning. The cloud shield overhead extended to the edge of the Sierra, which meant we had a brief but brilliant sunrise above the mountains. Then everything went mostly gray and hazy, and the light turned soft. These geese — largely a mixture of Ross’s, snow, and white-fronted — settled into a pond where I paused.

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

Scroll down to share comments or questions. (Click post title first if viewing on the home page.)

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

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Mono Lake, Autumn Haze

Image October 24, 2023 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Haze settles over the expanse of Mono Lake on an autumn morning.

On this autumn morning I began photographing at Mono Lake well before dawn. My main idea was to work from a particular spot that has interesting shoreline contours and views towards distant peaks, starting when I could photograph the light of the intensely colorful pre-sunrise sky reflecting on the lake’s surface. I did that, and I stuck around just until the sun cleared those distant mountains — then I moved on to photograph the lake in more “normal” daytime light.

I initially went to this spot hoping to photograph some thin fog that was trying to establish itself along the lake’s shoreline, where cool autumn air flowed over the warmer lake waters. As I considered the scene I became more interested in the silhouettes of the distant island and hills, many miles away, and the textures and patterns formed by morning breezes on the surface of the immense lake.

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

Photographs: Nature

Desert Lake, Island and Mountains

Image September 30, 2023 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Desert Lake, Island and Montains — Distant desert mountains stand in morning light beyond Mono Lake and Paoha Island.

Distant desert mountains stand in morning light beyond Mono Lake and Paoha Island.

Mono Lake is known for a few particular things: the picturesque tufa towers along its shoreline and its extremely salty water. (It is landlocked, so all water — except that stolen by LA — leaves the lake by means of evaporation.) But other things that characterize the Mono Basin for me, too. One is the surprising juxtaposition of essentially high desert and the vast surface of this lake. Another is the huge expanse of sky. And at times, the area can be as still and silent as almost any place I’ve been.

This time I went in the morning, primarily to visit two places. One, seen in some other photographs that I’ll share from this visit, is an old ponderosa pine forest that was consumed by wildfire. The other is the spot in this photograph, on a ridge along a roadway, where I can look across hills and the periphery of a volcanic crater toward the lake, its own volcanic islands, and desert mountains in the far distance.