Tag Archives: landscape

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

Afternoon Light, Forest and Cliff

February 16, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Yosemite Valley forest and cliffs in hazy late afternoon light

This past weekend I had time to visit Yosemite Valley for a couple of hours. That doesn’t sound like much time, but it is enough to see a few things and make a few photographs. (We would have had more time, but we were distracted by migratory birds as we crossed the Central Valley, and by the time we arrived in the park it was mid afternoon.) Coming into the Valley we spotted the first evidence of the annual migration of the Horsetail Fall photographers, lined up in a spot along the Merced River a few hours before sunset. (We saw more of them on the way out of the Valley later in the evening.)

For me, photography in the Valley is often about the light, with the quality of the atmosphere being close to the light in importance. Given that there were no clouds I was not too optimistic about the prospects, but when we arrived at a meadow late in the afternoon I saw some beautiful haze that was starting to be backlit by the lowering sun. I found some trees — the group in this photograph and others in a pair of photographs I’ll share later — and I looked for a composition that eliminated the bright sky, that put the sun close to directly behind the trees, and which put some of the valley walls and towers in the frame in order to provide some form and textural relief to the haze. Then it was a matter of lining up the elements of the photograph so that the tallest trees were within the outline of a large tower. Shooting almost straight into the sun (and engaging in interesting gymnastics in order to shield the front element of my lens from flare-producing direct light), I made a few exposures.

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

Sandhill Cranes, Fog

February 11, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of sandhill cranes flies low above foggy San Joaquin Valley wetlands.

I often ponder the relationship between my landscape photography and bird photography. I’d have to admit that one reason for photographing the birds is that it provides a great reason to spend days out in this foggy winter landscape of California’s Great Central Valley, a landscape quite different from others that I photograph. This land is almost completely flat, and the fog cuts off even the distant view of the mountains to the west and east. In the fog there is no sky, and there is barely a horizon, and the everything seems quiet — despite all those birds! — and mysterious.

While I’m out there with my camera, trying to make photographs of birds, I’m also on the lookout for landscape scenes that somehow embody the feelings of being in this place in the winter. Every so often all of the pieces fall into place, often quickly and almost without warning, and a simple scene emerges, as this one did. I think my primary frame of reference was the horizon fading in the fog, the scattered clumps of obscured trees, and the glowing atmosphere — and it was almost pure luck that this group of cranes entered the scene at just this moment.

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

Ross’s Geese, Foggy Pasture

February 10, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Ross’s geese take off from a foggy San Joaquin Valley pasture

I’ve been out to the San Joaquin Valley quite a few times over the past few months, beginning in the last months of 2014, when there were not yet too many birds there, and as recently as a couple of weeks ago, when large numbers of geese and cranes had returned. (This was a bit of a relief, since many wondered where the birds had gone, especially after this string of drought years in California.)

Our visit to the valley on New Year’s Day was especially nice. Not only did a small group of us literally greet the dawn of the new year in the company of thousands of birds, but we were pleased to see the numbers of the birds had begun to increase again. Among them were the Ross’s geese, who appeared in rather large numbers. While the morning fog was still in the air, though thinning enough to let faint sun through, large groups of them had settled in on the pasture land. The birds were constantly coming and going, as new groups arrived and others left, and as they moved one spot to others nearby, often for reasons that I could not discern. In this photograph the large group still on the ground was in the process of leaving, with a new group taking to the sky every few moments.

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

The Aspen Palette

February 9, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Colorful eastern Sierra autumn aspen groves along US 395.

This is another photograph from a few years back that I rediscovered while reviewing many, many photographs for a project that I’m working on. I made the photograph in mid-October along highway 395 in the eastern Sierra, where the autumn colors had finally worked their way down from the higher regions toward the valleys. This large grove of aspens is a fall favorite of mine. The sub-grove extend mostly from left to right across the scene, and the genetically related trees of each group seem to change colors at different times and to end up with different coloration — and when my timing is just right and the season cooperates, almost the entire palette of possible aspen colors can appear here at once. In this photograph we have brilliant reds at the bottom of the frame, blending through orange toward yellow/gold, with a few still-green trees and even a few that have lost most of their leaves.

As I worked on this photograph recently I realized that I made it at a time that seemed much different in California. The two preceding winters had brought record levels of precipitation, the high country had opened late with snow remaining much later than usual, and there was water everywhere. This October visit to the eastern Sierra came near the end of the second wet summer, and it looked like we were about to be in for another wet winter, with early season storms. Then the tap was shut off, and we experienced three years are terrible drought. These trees and others in the range are now under a great deal of stress, and the past autumn was a bit of a strange one. And now, in the fourth year, the Sierra is still experiencing far below normal snowfall and far above-normal temperatures.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: landscape

Afternoon Light, Forest and Cliff

Sandhill Cranes, Fog

Ross’s Geese, Foggy Pasture

The Aspen Palette

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