Tag Archives: morning

Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Redwood National & State Parks

Redwood Forest, Morning

June 8, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

For many years I have, in a sense, neglected the far northwestern corner of California where the Redwood National and State Parks are located. While I have photographed coast redwoods closer to the San Francisco Bay area, my experience in this true heart of the great redwood country has been quite limited — I’ve driven through a few times, but I have done very little photography there. This past week I had my first real opportunity to begin the process of rectifying this omission, and during this visit I managed to photograph in four of the main park components of the area. I’ll have additional photographs beyond this one, and I’ll expand on my thoughts about the area as I share them here.

This late May and early June period seems like it just might be prime time for this area, at least from a photographic perspective. Things are still very wet in this temperate rain forest, and new spring vegetation is everywhere along with plenty of wildflowers. This lushness produces scenes that are both attractive and a challenge to photography. As differentiated from, say, the Sierra Nevada, here there are few singular iconic sights. Instead there is the rich complexity of the redwood forest. (Also, of course, there is the nearby coastline.) The redwoods themselves lend an almost obsessive verticality to these scenes, but those large forms contrast with the dense details of other plant life. This was one of the first redwood forests within which I photographed on this visit, and I enjoyed the challenge of finding compositional form within this complexity.

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.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Cranes, Fog, Morning Light

June 6, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock, of sandhill cranes on the ground in foggy early morning light

I’ve been sitting on this photograph for some time, a photograph from another time when a group of cranes lined up in the thin sunlight on a foggy morning, with empty fields leading into the distance and finally disappearing in the fog.

It is a bit unusual — though not entirely unique — to find a group of this many cranes standing in a row like this. Often they are in the distance, in smaller groups, airborne, or standing in strange positions and arrangements. Although the lighting is unusual, it is part of what attracted me to this scene.

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

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

City Super

May 30, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Busy morning at “City Super” in San Francisco, with produce boxes lined up along the curb

I’ll take a street photography break today, and step away from the Yosemite landscape photography that I’ve been posting almost non-stop. This is a photograph from what I think of as the real Chinatown in San Francisco — a few blocks over from tourist Chinatown, and an area filled with people and markets like this one.

I almost always arrive here on foot, most often after taking the train up the peninsula to the City and then striking out in whatever direction seems interesting, depending on the light and my mood. On this morning I wandered all the way into North Beach before looping back through the area in the photograph.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Five Cranes, Morning Sky

May 15, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Five sandhill cranes pass overhead against blue morning sky

Cranes just might be on my mind this week due to a little snippet on a television program I saw last week. In it a couple of people, a photographer and a wildlife proponent, we sitting along the edge of a watery area in, if memory serves, the state of Nebraska. All it took in this brief clip was the sound of these birds, the site of them in flight and on the ground, and all of the associations with being in their ancient presence came back. If you’ve experienced it, you know — the moist air, the cold, the short winter days, and then the sound and sight of these birds.

There are lots of ways to photograph these birds. I often place them in the landscape, but here I wanted to focus on the birds themselves, as a group of them flew overhead in late-day light. Compared to certain other birds you might see in the same places and at the same times, the cranes have a more “stately” pattern of flight. They takeoff at a relatively low angle, and they often fly horizontally for a good distance before they gain much elevation. In smaller groups they fly beak-to-tail in undulating lines. Their wing motion is slower than that of, say, geese. Oddly, however, for birds that often seem so low-key, there are exceptions. One is the familiar “dance” that they do during mating season, when individuals extend their winds and jump into the air. In addition, I’ve sometimes caught then doing very strange things in flight — sudden twists and turns, beak pointed up toward the sky, and more.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: morning

Redwood Forest, Morning

City Super

Five Cranes, Morning Sky

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