Tag Archives: leafless

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Three Trees and Pasture

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Three Trees and Pasture
“Three Trees and Pasture” — Three dormant trees in a newly-green Central Valley pasture.

A band of photographers and friends has met in a semi-wild place every New Year’s Day for about a decade. We get join welcome tothe new year, share stories, and photograph birds and the landscape. Until this year we had a streak of good weather New Year’s Days, but we were due for bad weather — and we got it! It wasn’t exactly horrible, but it was rather wet and gray… except for a few moments when the clouds parted enough to allow some light.

These three bare trees are old friends of mine. I’ve visited and photographed them for years. This time I was intrigued by the light on more distant trees, the ominous skies, and the newly green pasture. That winter green is a characteristic of much of California. it must almost seem to those from other places that our seasons are backwards — brown and dry in the summer and lush and green in the middle of winter.

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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. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Three Winter Trees at Sunrise

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Three Winter Trees at Sunrise
Three winter trees in soft sunrise light on a misty Central Valley morning.

Three Winter Trees at Sunrise. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Three winter trees in soft sunrise light on a misty Central Valley morning.

This is another photograph from my first-week-of-March visit to the Central Valley. My objective was to photograph migratory birds one more time before their March departure for the far north. Once on the scene my goals shifted more towards landscape photography, as many of the birds had dispersed a bit more widely than usual and were in areas that were not accessible. Recent heavy California rains had produced pooling water nearly everywhere, so the birds were not all in their familiar locations. Fortunately, the trees had not moved.

In other recent posts I have mentioned the surprise appearance of tule fog on this morning. The day started out crystal clear, and lacking the expected bird subjects I decided to photograph these trees at sunrise. I was so intent on this that the slightly muted quality of the light didn’t trigger my “maybe there will be fog” instincts. But when I look at this photograph now I can see that the conditions were already starting to develop. But at the moment I made the photograph, all I saw was the soft, reddish sunrise light on the trunks of these trees.

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.

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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

Oak Silhouette

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Oak Silhouette
A dormant oak tree silhouetted against glowing winter light and hzae.

Oak Silhouette. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A dormant oak tree silhouetted against glowing winter light and hzae.

As the grand alpine landscapes of the Sierra backcountry become mostly inaccessible to me in the winter, my attention inevitably turns to the low country — the Pacific coast, the inland valleys, and the oak/grassland hills not far from where I live. This photograph comes from the latter, a small county park less than a half hour from my home, a place where I have hiked for many years. There are still surprises there, though, including this tree, which I had not noticed before this hike on Christmas Eve Day.

At first glance the conditions might not have seemed to promising for photography. A period of stagnant winter air around here had produced a lot of haze — so much that there were prohibitions on fireplace use and some warning about particulate levels. But that same haze glows in a luminous fashion when the light is right, and here it mutes the background details and sets off the form of this old oak tree.

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.

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

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Old Tree in Winter

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Old Tree in Winter
An old and gnarled tree, leafless near the end of winter.

Old Tree in Winter. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An old and gnarled tree, leafless near the end of winter.

Having a large archive of photographs that are sorted and filed by date proves useful in lots of ways. For example, this past week I wanted to remind myself of the likely conditions of a particular subject I intend to photograph soon, and by looking back a few years I was able to get a pretty good fix on the timing of a pretty significant annual change affecting this subject. It also proves useful for non-photographic purposes… such as remembering how our world was starting to close down in March of 2020 and how we responded to it.

This photograph comes from near the beginning of March last year, at a time when we were well aware that danger was on the horizon, but when we had not yet fully responded as a society. (That was about to happen, and I should be able to share some photographs that remind me of that threshold in the next few weeks.) On this day I recall pausing beneath this sprawling wetland tree and appreciating the layers of curves and various sized branches leading upward toward an extremely bright late-winter sky.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

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