Tag Archives: license

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

Diablo Range, Winter Sunset

April 15, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Colorful winter sunset over the Diablo Range, seen from California’s San Joaquin Valley

It is rare for me to shoot a scene quite like this one, with the setting sun included in the frame. It was a sort of spontaneous thing. I had a very long lens on the camera since I was photographing geese and cranes in the evening light, and when I looked up and saw that the sun was setting right in the low point on the ridge of the Diablo Range I quickly grabbed my tripod and made a few exposures of this scene.

This time right around and just after sunset is what I think of as the magic hour here in this Valley between the Sierra and the Diablo Range. Much of the pre-sunset coming and going of the geese pauses and things seem to slow down. The wild color was only there for a brief moment, and only in this specific part of the sky right above the setting sun, where the low light reflected off the bottom of a high, thin cloud layer. A single bird (perhaps a hawk? is in the upper branches of the tree at far left, and some light reflects off of the surface of the ponds at this wildlife refuge.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Four Ross’s Geese, Sunset Light

April 14, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Four Ross’s geese in flight against the sky in sunset light

I photographed this group of Ross’s geese late in the day, just as golden hour light was beginning to intensify. We had spent the day in the San Joaquin Valley, visiting a couple of wildlife refuges, and returned at the end of the day to the place where we had begun shooting before dawn. We hoped for some combination of evening geese and then a dusk fly-in of sandhill cranes.

The amount of control you have when photographing these birds is minimal. It is up to them to decide where they will settle in, when and in what direction they will fly, and much more. A lot of the process involves doing things that you hope will increase your odds – being in likely spots at likely times, and so forth – then being ready to take advantage of whatever comes your way. The latter requires some sensitivity to how things are developing, some experience with the camera so that you can make decisions quickly and track flying birds that may turn up unexpectedly, and more. The situation with the geese on this evening was a bit unusual, at least in my experience. At this place we have often been able to find very large flocks of the birds late in the day, at which point a reasonable strategy is to position yourself nearby, taking into consideration the direction of the light, possible backgrounds, and the paths they will likely fly. Then you wait, ready to photograph, until the birds decide to do what birds decide to do! With luck, they will lift off in interesting groups, against interesting backdrops, and in good light. On this evening, we were only able to find one relatively small group of Ross’s geese. (We saw other much larger groups in the area, but they were further off and in places inaccessible to us.) So we found out spot nearby and waited, photographing very small groups of them as they lifted off and flow to the north. However, a few groups did an extra loop or two around us, coming back over our position quite low. You never know how the birds will line up, and often they will ether be too separated from one another or else they are so tightly clustered that you get blocked heads or wings that cover other birds. However, this group was polite enough to line themselves up in such a way that as they flew past each of them was completely visible in the evening light.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Southern California

Evening Shadows, Pebbles, and Tracks

April 13, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The tracks of a passing animal among small pebbles in evening shadows on the dunes, Death Valley National Park

The day before I made this photograph a huge wind/dust storm had swept across Death Valley, raising tall clouds of dust high into the air, blowing away tents and anything else not firmly tied down, and spreading a thin film of dust into cars, tents, sleeping bags, and just about everything else. The idea of a desert dust/sand storm is interesting and exciting, and there are certainly some elements in this weather that are photographically compelling – but the reality is that they can make like quite difficult for a while.

On the other hand, after the dust storm passes, many of the usual traces of human presence are temporarily erased from sand dune areas. So on this evening after the dust storm I wandered out into low dunes away from the more popular areas and saw virtually no human tracks where I ended up. However, I did non-human tracks, perhaps more clearly given that there were fewer of them and they were isolated against the newly clean and smooth wind-blown sand. I just happened to spot these small tracks (a lizard?) as I entered a small “dune” valley. I first noticed the uppermost shape, which reminded me of a small branch or twig or possibly a bit of coral. I soon noticed the more linear track up the middle of the branch-like tracks – a tail? – and thought I might be able to make a photographic composition out of these tracks, a few small rocks embedded in the sand, and some of the early afternoon shadows across the sand.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Southern California

Backcountry Road, Desert Mountains

April 12, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Titus Canyon road twists through rugged desert landscape of Titanothere Canyon before climbing to its high point at Red Pass

I have driven through this desert back-country quite a few times during my visits to Death Valley National Park. This time was a bit different in two specific ways. First, in the past I have usually combined this route with an early morning shoot at a nearby location, shooting at this other location first, taking a breakfast break, and only then heading out on this drive. Consequently, I’ve always made the drive quite a bit later in the day when the light is much different – usually more hazy and with the sun higher in the sky. This time I started my day on this route, heading out just before dawn. Secondly, I made this a more leisurely passage. Sometimes in the past I have allowed myself to pass by too many portions of this region a bit too quickly, telling myself I had to move on in order to get to other things in time. This time I stopped a lot, and I often lingered at these stops for quite some time, poking around and looking for things to photograph that I might previously missed.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I have sometimes found certain aspects of the desert terrain to be quite difficult to “see” as photographs. I think that the limited color palette has been one issue (often spanning the range from gray to tan!) as has the tendency for things to have a rather uniform appearance – often it is hard to find one central and prominent feature to focus on. In addition, for a photographer who has tended to work in places with water and greenery, the desert possess some different challenges. More than on some previous visits, this time I think I realized more that it is absolutely critical to slow down and adapt to the different pace and rhythms of this world. This time, rather than looking and deciding to move on, I stopped and looked some more. And as I did I began to see that there are more of the patterns and juxtapositions and forms that intrigue me than I had realized.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: license

Diablo Range, Winter Sunset

Evening Shadows, Pebbles, and Tracks

Backcountry Road, Desert Mountains

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