Tag Archives: landscape

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Klamath Basin Dawn

February 20, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Klamath Basin dawn light and clouds reflected in wetlands ponds.

Getting up early enough to drive to a location and photograph before dawn is no fun. It is not uncommon for me to have to wake up two, three, or more hours before dawn, and this is always a struggle. The alarm goes off, and I force myself out of bed quickly — otherwise there is a very real danger that my eyes will close and I’ll fall asleep before I know what happened. (I’ve done this, only to awaken so much later that my trip had to be abandoned!) In the darkness I dress for the cold, grab gear and some food, and off I go, sometimes to drive for an hour or two.

This morning’s drive was nearly but not quite an hour, but my destination was a place I had never visited before, so I was a bit concerned about finding my way around in the darkness. Arriving in the general vicinity, I soon figured out the rough lay of the land in darkness and headed off in an interesting direction as the first light appeared. And what light it was! A weather front passing to the west had scattered high clouds above the mountains to my east. The clouds turned brilliant colors well before sunrise, and the reflections of the warm tones of the sky mingled with the cool blue tones of water in the shallow ponds as I pulled up and began my wait for migratory birds. On a morning like this, standing in the cool air under a sky like this as I hear the early calls of geese and swans, I have no doubts at all about the wisdom of getting up in the darkness.

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

Wetlands Tree, Fog

February 19, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A tree and brush reflected in still water of a fog-shrouded wetland pond

These are my favorite days in California’ Great Central Valley, the winter days when the tule fog forms and covers the landscape, making almost everything seem mysterious. On days when most sane people avoid driving in this fog, I head this direction hoping I’ll find it. In certain areas, even when it is clear almost everywhere else, the fog can form above the winter wetlands and quickly drop visibility to near zero. (One of the strangest but characteristic experiences is driving slowly through pre-dawn darkness and fog so thick that you can barely see more than feet in front of you, yet being able to look straight up through the shallow fog layer to see the moon and stars overhead.)

It was tremendously foggy on the February morning. Arriving at this refuge we could hear thousands of geese and cranes off in the invisible distance in almost all directions, but we could not see a single bird. Eventually, on a perimeter road circling the wetlands, I came across this spot were a few trees stand in the shallow, still water. The fog hides distant elements of the landscape or at least mutes them, giving prominence to closer features that might otherwise be lost in background detail. The central tree, visually muted even though it is barely fifty feet from my camera position, curves above the reflecting water and its skeletal form stands out from the nearly invisible background plants and water that are almost invisible in the fog.

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

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

Tundra Swans, Mountains, and Snow

February 18, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Tundra swans fly past snow-covered and cloud shrouded mountains, Klamath Basin

In mid-February I had the opportunity to spend some time in the Klamath Basin, a place I’ve only visited once before, and that on a pass-through to somewhere else. From that earlier visit I recall passing by Upper Klamath Lake, which I had not really known much about, and being surprised by its size and by the obvious potential for wildlife. Years passed and I occasionally thought about the place, but it wasn’t until this year that I finally made it back for a longer visit as part of my project to expand my knowledge of west coast winter migratory bird areas.

This photograph comes from my final morning in the area. I had actually packed up the vehicle and had driven out of Klamath Falls, Oregon to start my long drive home. It was a beautiful misty, rainy, cloudy morning, and as I drove along I came to a quiet lake at which the sun was just breaking through the clouds, so I stopped. Realizing that I was at the far end of a road past the Lower Klamath area (right below the California-Oregon border) I decided to head east. I soon found myself back at a wildlife area where I had spent time photographing over the past few days, mostly focusing on the passing flights of tundra swans. I saw the swans were in the air again, so I left the main road and found a spot out in the wetlands with an expansive view and, among other things, waited for the long strings of birds to pass in front of the winter landscape.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Lake and Peninsula

February 15, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Trees grow on a peninsula at a Yosemite subalpine lake, late summer

We have passed nearly halfway though our annual circuit around the sun since I made this photograph. It is now slightly past midwinter, and the photograph was made in late summer, a few weeks before the arrival of solar fall, though the signs of autumn were already everywhere in this drought-affected portion of the Sierra backcountry.

The haze in the atmosphere beyond the peninsula with its sunlit trees comes from wildfires that were burning all over Yosemite and the rest of the Sierra. One small one was burning just across a nearby ridge and a more distant but larger fire periodically fill the air with thick smoke. Wildfire smoke is a normal feature at the end of the season, but this year it was much worse than normal. Fortunately, every day the winds shifted, the smoke moved away, and we got some beautiful near-autumn weather — time to enjoy the golden-brown meadow grasses, walks around the lake, and the occasional climb up onto grants slabs that rose from its shoreline.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: landscape

Klamath Basin Dawn

Wetlands Tree, Fog

Tundra Swans, Mountains, and Snow

Lake and Peninsula

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