Tag Archives: motion

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Blue Hour, Point Lobos

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Blue Hour, Point Lobos
Blue Hour, Point Lobos

Blue Hour, Point Lobos. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. February 17, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening “blue hour” light along the Pacific Ocean shoreline at Point Lobos State Reserve

I have been visiting Point Lobos for decades, beginning when I was a young child. Point Lobos was on the circuit of parks in the greater San Francisco Bay Area that my parents regularly visited, and back in those days my elementary school even took field trips there to investigate tide pools. I have continued to visit often since that time. You would think that by now I would know every nook and cranny of this place but, as is always the case, there is still more to see and to learn about it.

For example, although I’m positive I must have seen this line of rocks extending into the surf many times over the years, it wasn’t until a few years ago that I recognized it as a potential photographic subject and even then I did not immediately see its relationship to the further shoreline. On this mid-winter (my favorite time to visit Point Lobos!) day I shot many subjects before finding myself here in the evening shortly after sunset, when the world takes on a magical and rich blue tone and ocean fog was beginning to appear over the coast.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Birds, Dusk

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Birds, Dusk
Birds, Dusk

Birds, Dusk. San Joaquin Valley, California. February 14, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Birds in the fading light of winter dusk about the San Joaquin Valley

This is likely to at least partially a bird week as I continue to share photographs of migratory birds and their San Joaquin Valley environment from last winter. Certain responsibilities have kept me at home rather than in the field, so I’ve been trying to put the time to good use by reviewing photographs that I made during the past six month. As I move on to the next thing, I sometimes leave behind photographs which, at the time, interest me less than those newer ones, and coming back looking at them later on almost always leads to a few discoveries.

I made this photograph at the end of a long and productive day of (mostly) bird photography. We began in fog before dawn and shot through the morning as the sun came up and eventually the fog began to dissipate, leaving behind that hazy winter Central Valley atmosphere. After a midday break we returned in the late afternoon, and shot right on into the evening until the light was truly gone — perhaps just a bit past gone. After sunset as the dusk sky darkened I simply lengthened exposures to compensate and intentionally worked with the blur created by the birds and by camera motion. Even now, months later, I remember the sensations of the sky filling with what seemed like nervously active birds of many types.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Landing

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Landing
Landing

Landing. San Joaquin Valley, California. February 14 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A goose approaches a landing in a San Joaquin Valley wetlands pond at dusk

A goose (either Ross’s or snow goose) prepares to land in a San Joaquin Valley wetlands pond at dusk last winter. We frequently photograph winter migratory birds in California’s Central Valley, and we were at a location in the San Joaquin for the full day back in mid-February. It was an almost ideal day for winter photography in the Valley, with highlights including lots of birds (of course!), morning fog that cleared after the sun rose, a colorful sunset, and the dusk arrival of many thousands of birds.

I have worked with motion-blurred photographs of birds for some time now. While I also like to create sharply delineated photographs that show the details of these animals, I also like the more expressive quality of the blurred images, which also may evoke the motion of the birds in a different and effective way. As the light becomes very dim at and after dusk, rather than ending my shooting I got with the slower shutter speeds and start to play with motion. Here I tracked this goose as in came in for a landing, allowing it to blur a bit but not as much as the background water and birds that had already landed.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Winter Dusk, Three Birds

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Winter Dusk, Three Birds
Winter Dusk, Three Birds

Winter Dusk, Three Birds. San Joaquin Valley, California. January 1, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Motion blur abstraction of a winter scene with three birds landing

Near the end of the day, well along into the dusk hour, with light fading fast, I decided to take advantage of the poor light and “play” a bit with very slow shutter speeds and intentional camera motion. By moving the camera in various ways during the exposure I can control to some extent the angle, length, and linearity of the blur. In some cases it is enough to just track the birds — and give the less fuzzy image of the three central birds, I am pretty certain that is what I was doing here. In other cases I can basically ignore the motion of my subjects and simply think about how to move the camera to create patterns in the motion blur.

I’ve often felt that working for sharply focused, stopped motion images of birds is not the only way to depict whatever it is that attracts me to them. The camera lets us see birds in ways that we really cannot usually see them with our own eyes. When birds are in motion it is almost impossible — at least with many types of birds — to clearly see them. They move too fast and the motion of wings is essentially impossible to track visually. And when we do stop them with a fast shutter speed, while we get to see them with a kind of clarity that isn’t otherwise possible, we may also sacrifice that sense of constant motion. So I started playing with the idea of intentionally avoiding sharp focus, allowing camera motion to come into play and using slow shutter speeds to allow the birds to blur and to blur their surroundings as the camera moves. To me, this sometimes evokes more strongly the feeling of the fast motion that I observe among these birds, and creates a different sort of honest portrayal of them.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.