Tag Archives: morning

Only As Good As Your Poorest Picture? (Morning Musings 9/26/14)

September 26, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Yellow Buildings, Shadows, Moving Clouds - Night photograph of two large yellow buildings, shadows, and streaks for clouds moving across the sky above the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, California. — Yellow Buildings, Shadows, Moving Clouds – Night photograph of two large yellow buildings, shadows, and streaks for clouds moving across the sky above the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, California.*

Recently I was part of a conversation about photography, focused on some technical questions about equipment, in which one participant sought to define the issue by writing that you are only has good as your poorest picture.

Simple and direct sayings like this one may have the virtue of quickly clarifying an important concept or truth and (something I could learn more about!) doing so in few words. Unfortunately, there are often downsides, too. Because they are so declamatory, it is easy for some people to simply accept them without thinking. Being simple, they often don’t fit all cases. And sometimes they are just plain wrong.

In this case, this notion seems to me to be dead wrong and to not fit at all what we actually know and observe about photography. In fact, I think that the opposite is actually true — photographers are actually as good as their best pictures. Continue reading Only As Good As Your Poorest Picture? (Morning Musings 9/26/14) →

Morning Musings

Seeing Small (Morning Musing 9/22/14)

September 22, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

I frequently go out and photograph for a morning or a day, or even as briefly as an hour or two. My instincts — for place and for seeing — are such that I can usually get myself into a productive state of mind quickly enough to make worthwhile photographs even with so little time. But I’m fortunate to be able to head out for much longer periods of photography several times each year, ranging from a few days to as much as several weeks — and this experience is very different from that of the shorter sessions and, I think, produces a different kind of photographic work.

As I continue to work my way through hundreds of frames that I brought back recently from ten early September days in the Yosemite backcountry, I begin to wrap my brain around the entirety of the collection of images and I start to see some patterns. One of these is a process that is a combination of “focusing in” and “settling in,” something that takes place in several ways over the course of a long trip like this one.

The transition is obvious when viewed in retrospect — the feelings of excitement and looking forward to the adventure at the beginning are very different from the feelings as the trip comes to an end, which are a combination of an in-the-moment focus and a certain amount of retrospection. At the beginning, no matter how many times I have been out on the trail (a total that can be measured in years at this point), there is always a feeling of excitement and unknown potentials on that first day. I tend to be attracted to the bigger and more obvious elements in the landscape, and a first look around a new location on a day near the beginning of a trip often sees me photographing many of the big, impressive, and obvious subjects.

Then the inevitable transition begins. There might first be a feeling of “I think I’ve photographed everything here,” followed by the now-familiar understanding that I haven’t, and a decision to wander about and see what I’ve missed. This (purposeful) wandering always leads me to see things that I missed at first, often smaller things that I hadn’t seen because I was not yet looking closely enough or sufficiently tuned in to the nuances of the place. And before long I’m finding compositions in a bit of meadow grass, pine cones littering the forest floor in morning light, the textures and forms of granite, and light shining through trees.

Morning Musings are somewhat irregular posts in which I write about whatever is on my mind at the moment.

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

Morning Light, Forest and Granite

September 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light on forests and granite terrain along the Tuolumne River on a day of rain and wildfire smoke

After about five days of beautiful late-summer conditions high in the northern Yosemite backcountry we descended to a lower elevation, partly in preparation for our departure a few days later and partly (OK, mostly) so that we could photograph in a different location for a few days. On the morning of our move to the new spot we saw a small bit of smoke in the far distance, over the shoulder of Clouds Rest, but it didn’t seem much different from the other small bits of smoke coming from the usual late-season managed fires. However, as we began our cross-country route down a steep canyon we saw that the smoke had grown and that the plume was now extending over our position. Not long after this, as we neared the bottom of the canyon, the smoke became very thick, blotting out the sun and dropping ash on us. We knew that the fire, no doubt whipped by winds that we experience in our location, had taken off — this was the start of the big “Meadow Fire” that burned in Little Yosemite Valley and which forced a number of back-country visitors to evacuate.

Fortunately, that night it rained — what perfect timing! The next morning we were up to make photographs, and for most of the day we shot between the periodic showers that swept through. Early in the morning I went to a high place to photograph this view down the canyon as light, somewhat obscured by clouds and lingering smoke, broke through gaps in the clouds to strike the forest along the river banks. But further down the canyon another shower was on its way, and before long I had to leave my position here and scramble back to my tent to wait out the next bout of rain.

Morning Light, Forest and Granite

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

Oaks and Grass, Late Summer

August 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Late summer morning fog clears about oak and grass-covered California hills

Today’s photographic journey was a short one — back to a local park where I have photographed for quite a few years, though not recently. This is a place that I used to go to almost every week, and where I hiked just about every trail, to the point that I became intimately familiar with the place in all seasons. It is a landscape of rolling hills with a few high, rocky outcroppings, many oak trees, and grassland. In the manner of most of California, the grass deeply affects the appearance — changing from “impossible green” in winter and spring to brown or golden, depending upon your disposition. I think of it as golden.

This morning I was in a bit of an autumn frame of mind. (A separate post today will have more to say about that pleasant state.) I got up early to discover that the area was covered by the typical coastal high fog. (I live perhaps an hour’s drive from the Pacific Ocean.) This is not the sort of romantic and moody fog that sits low to the ground and floats among trees. It is the higher, drab, gray kind of fog that produces an undifferentiated sky and very flat light. However, at this time of year that fog will most certainly clear, usually by mid-morning. So I left home in these gray conditions, planning to be among the oaks and grass when the fog began to break up.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: morning

Only As Good As Your Poorest Picture? (Morning Musings 9/26/14)

Seeing Small (Morning Musing 9/22/14)

Morning Light, Forest and Granite

Oaks and Grass, Late Summer

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