Tag Archives: mist

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

Marsh Grasses and Fog, Dawn

November 26, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

I went to this place to photograph birds – at least that was my excuse. In the past few years I have become passionate about photographing migratory birds in the Great Central Valley of California between late fall and early spring – geese, cranes, herons, ibises, and more. Once you hear the cries of these birds as thousands of them flock together on the ground or in water or, better yet, as they fly overhead, you can become obsessed. In the fall I anticipate their return and watch for early signs. A few weeks ago we managed to find cranes further up the valley, and I knew that the geese wouldn’t be far behind – so this trip was, literally, a “wild goose chase.”

But the truth is a bit more involved. As much as I love the birds, I think that I’m at least as attracted to landscapes where they are found, and to the weather conditions of this season. You might think that a bird photographer would want clear skies and bright light, but I look forward more to fog, clouds, and mist and other kinds of interesting atmosphere. It occurs to me that the birds may partially be my excuse for visiting this landscape. I was expected that it might be clear on this morning, so I was happy (strange photographer!) when I drove into thick fog a few miles from my destination. I arrived just before dawn as the sky was somewhere in that color range between blue and purple and pink, but just barely visible though the murk. I made a few true sunrise photographs that included a barely visible sun behind fog and clouds, then moved on along a gravel road to try to locate the cranes that I could hear. As I came to a right angle turn, the fog stretched beyond the nearby grasses and straight toward the low sun in front of me, thick enough that all details in the distance disappeared (with the exception of a few barely visible birds) into a luminous glow that was almost painfully intense

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

Autumn Cottonwood Trees, Meadow, Fog

November 11, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning fog drifts through a stand of cottonwood trees with golden autumn leaves, Yosemite Valley

Like essentially everyone who has photographed much in Yosemite Valley, I know this little stand of cottonwood trees very well. It is an obvious attractive photographic subject since its densely grouped trees stand apart from other trees in the middle of a meadow, its “perfect cottonwood-ness” is broken by the presence of a couple of other trees almost hidden within the stand, there are a variety of potential backgrounds for the small grove, at the right times it can be beautifully lit, and the meadow often forms beautiful ground fog early in the morning during certain seasons and conditions. Since the fall color of the trees seemed near its peak, I made a plan to be out there at one of the potentially ideal times on Halloween morning.

On the prior day I had decided on the spot from which I would photograph, with the idea being to make a fairly tightly cropped photograph of the trees with a bit of canyon wall in the background. With this plan in mind, I woke up in the darkness and arrived here well before sunrise and went directly to the spot I had picked out. I was very happy to find ground fog drifting over the meadow and frost on its dried grasses. I started photographing almost right away, before there was any direct light here or anywhere else in the Valley, and I planned to shoot right through sunrise and the point when the first direct light strikes the meadow and this group of trees. Before long, the first bit of sunlight came to the upper edge of the trees, and the light changed quickly as the beam of light from up near Half Dome moved down across the trees and began to cast alternating light and shadow across the meadow. This image from the series of photographs seems like the best combination of fog (which began to dissipate as the sun arrived), sunlight on trees and meadow, and background still in shade.

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Sheep, Morning Fog

November 1, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of sheep grazes under morning fog in an eastern Sierra Nevada meadow

There is a long tradition of grazing sheep (and cattle) in parts of the Sierra Nevada. Many years ago they were taken to the high country in the summer season – a practice that Muir railed against, describing their effect on the vegetation of the high Sierra as that of “hoofed locusts.” Today we don’t see grazing in the high country anymore since these areas are now protected as wilderness, outside or inside national parks in many cases. But the tradition continues in the lower country along the eastern side of the range.

For many years I have seen the occasional flock of sheep on the east side, sometimes close to the mountains (as is the case here) and more often a bit further out into the semi-desert highlands. Often there will be a shepherd standing guard and perhaps a sheep dog or two. (One flock we saw this time also contained, for reasons that I can’t quite understand, a single black mule.) Sometimes you will see the small trailer nearby where the shepherd lives. The flock in this photograph was one of two very large groups in close proximity to one another in an area south of Mammoth Lakes and right alongside highway 395. I had driven here to try to photograph the morning fog that was drifting from Crowley Lake, and we got there just as it was clearing from this spot, with light beams shining through the breaks in the cloud.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Flurries, Morning

October 26, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An early autumn weather front drops morning snow flurries along the rugged Sierra Nevada crest near Mount Morrison

This is another photograph from the final morning of our September photographic trip to the eastern Sierra Nevada. We were surprised to find it snowing lightly when we work up in Mammoth that morning, since there had been no mention of such weather in the previous day’s forecast. We decided to stick with our plan of making a big loop out to the east of Mammoth Lakes and then north by a back route to Mono Lake and highway 395 for our return trip. So we headed down the road out of Mammoth Lakes in the pre-dawn near-darkness and then started out across Long Valley.

Out in the valley as dawn approached, it became clear that the atmosphere was doing some very interesting things along the eastern edge of the Sierra. At first we saw a very strong weather cell over Mammoth Lakes that appeared to be dropping quite a bit of rain or snow, even though where we were it was virtually clear overhead. So we stopped and set up to make some photographs of these conditions. We continued shooting after the first red dawn light and watched as the snow squall worked its way south along the Sierra crest. In this photograph there is light snow falling along the ridge near Mount Morrison, but since the clouds did not extend to the east, the early morning light is hitting the upper slopes of this line of peaks.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: mist

Marsh Grasses and Fog, Dawn

Autumn Cottonwood Trees, Meadow, Fog

Sheep, Morning Fog

Autumn Flurries, Morning

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