Tag Archives: light

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Southern California

Walkway, Arch, and Stairs

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Walkway, Arch, and Stairs
Architectural details at Balboa Park, San Diego

Walkway, Arch, and Stairs. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Architectural details at Balboa Park, San Diego

One thing that has fascinated me as I’ve spent more time reviewing old files during the pandemic is the variations in how much I recall about the original experience of making the images. In some cases the recollection is so clear that I literally remember almost everything about it. At the other end of the spectrum are photographs that I don’t even recall making — they come as almost complete surprises now. This photograph lies between the extremes. I do specifically recall this day and the places we visited, but I do not remember making this photograph and I’m not exactly sure of the precise location.

Scenes like this intrigue me, and when I slow down and look I find them everywhere. I could easily walk through here and barely register the surroundings at all, but sometimes when I’m attuned to what I see, such places come alive. There are, I think, some fun visual surprises here. First, note how full the scene is of those black railings — parallel to the walkway at the left, steeply angled upwards beyond the column, and dropping into the scene from the right margin. Then spend a moment trying to make sense of the ways all of the various lines relate to one another. Some (all?) are angled due to perspective convergence (both straight ahead and toward the left) and their actual inclines. There’s more, if you are interested…

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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Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

White Pelicans, Sunset Light

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White Pelicans, Sunset Light
A small flock of white pelicans clusters together, rellected in a wetland pond at sunset.

White Pelicans, Sunset Light. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A small flock of white pelicans clusters together, rellected in a wetland pond at sunset.

One of the things I like about white pelicans is that they were always here, in the places I frequently visit, and I somehow managed to remain completely unaware of them for decades. I have long known about and photographed brown pelicans along the California coast, but I had no idea that they had cousins in California, too. My ignorance of them was so great that the first time I saw white pelicans, far off in the distance in thick fog, I speculated that they might be some kind of strange goose or perhaps swans. That sounds ridiculous, as I soon understood when I saw them more clearly. And once I saw the first flock they magically appeared in other locations I had long visited.

I’ve seen them everywhere from coastal areas to inland waterways and ponds. This group hangs out at an inland location, and I’ve seen them or their relatives off in the distance many times, usually just hanging around on small islands like this one. When I’m lucky I manage to be under their flight path as they take to the air. But this group had taken up residence on this little bar, close enough for me to photograph them very late in the day, only minutes before sunset, while I was on my way to another spot.

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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Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Cranes in Motion

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A flock of sandhill cranes taking flight above wetlands on a Central Valley autumn morning.

Cranes in Motion. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A flock of sandhill cranes taking flight above wetlands on a Central Valley autumn morning.

This photograph follows one that I shared a few days ago. In that photo a group of sandhill cranes was standing in and along the edge of a pond, and I mentioned that their upright positions suggested that they were preparing to take to the air and depart. I wrote that without looking at the files that followed. Now I have looked at those other files, and I realize that I was correct — the small flock rose into the air almost immediately after that photograph and then traversed across the scene from left to right. I made this photograph as they departed.

You may notice that there is a lot of motion blur in this photograph. We often try to capture sharp photographs of birds, including those in flight, by hoping for sufficient light and then learning to track them as they fly. That’s not always an easy thing to do, and there’s nothing wrong with a sharp photograph of birds! But sometimes I feel that including some blur may better express the motion of this subject and the speed and suddenness of the birds’ flight.

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: Birds, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Flock of Cranes in Flight

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Flock of Cranes in Flight
A flock of sandhill cranes in flight against clear blue sky.

Flock of Cranes in Flight. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A flock of sandhill cranes in flight against clear blue sky.

Today’s post gives me an excuse to explore a few technical (and aesthetic) considerations about photographing birds, so I’m sharing this photograph both as an image and as an illustration of a few things I’ll mention below. I made the photograph in the morning (contrary to a possibly erroneous bit of EXIF data in the file), when the rising sun was still low and the light was muted a bit by thin fog. I positioned myself in a spot that groups of cranes were crossing, and I simply waited for them to approach.

There’s a lot going on inside a dynamic flock like this one. Some things are at least partially subject to decisions by the photographer, while others must simply be accepted as “what is.” Even those that are subject to photographer decisions improve the odds rather than producing certainty. I identified a spot over which groups of birds were flying. I chose to position myself on the “sunny side” of that point so that passing birds would get some direct illumination. This is important, since backlit birds against a back sky are… challenging. The second issue has to do with the positions of the birds in the frame and relative to one another. With practice one can become better at framing the flying birds in desirable ways. More difficult is keeping track of how the birds interact with one another in flight. Ideally you probably want them close together, but you don’t want one bird obscuring the head of a nearby bird. The birds rarely understand this! But you can increase the odds by developing your ability to watch this positional interplay among the birds. You learnt to avoid triggering the shutter when the positions aren’t great and (to some extent) time your shots for when they are. In the end, as in this photograph, while all of these intentional acts help, there are still significant elements of chance in the result… and here it worked and not a single bird’s head is blocked by another in the group.

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.