Tag Archives: mountains

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

Land And Sea

February 15, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Big Sur coast meets the Pacific Ocean

I live close enough to the Big Sur coastline that I can visit on day trips, and I can visit at times when it is relatively quiet and uncrowded. A winter weekday can be ideal, and right now it is even less busy since the route is still blocked by a giant landscape perhaps fifty miles or so below the Monterey Peninsula.

Most often I prefer to photograph fairly early in the morning, when the light skims down across the coastal hills, creating patterns of shadow and light, or else in the evening, when the warm light of the late-day sun colors the ocean and the hills. But on some almost perfectly clear winter days, perhaps with a few high clouds and some atmospheric haze, the air almost glows and I can photograph right through the middle of the day. This was such a day. The haze and mist, partly atmospheric and party from spray thrown up by surf, accentuated the bluffs and headlands as they dropped into the Pacific, and the brilliant sun made the water so bright that it was difficult to look at it.

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Post-Sunset Geese

January 20, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Winter geese fly toward wetlands after sunset

These days photographing wild birds are frequently long. For me they begin about three hours before dawn, when I awake to a (very) early alarm, grab coffee and a bit of food, load my vehicle, and start out on a two-hour drive in the darkness. As I approach my destination the first color is coming to the sky above the Sierra — that is if tule fog doesn’t reduce visibility to 100 feet or so! I arrive a half hour before sunrise, set up camera equipment, and begin to work. At first I may make some landscape photographs, since it is often still too early to handhold the camera for bird photography, but soon the first birds fly up from the ponds. I usually spend the next three hours of so photographing birds and landscape — though the precise time varies depending on the conditions — and then I take a break in the middle of the day. By mid-afternoon I’m back, looking for evening photographic opportunities, and the pace of the work increases as sunset approaches. During the last few minutes of light a lot happens quickly, and then I photograph until the light is gone.

I made this photograph during that late period, following sunset, when lingering light colored the thin clouds above the western mountains. Around sunset there is a period of coming and going by the birds. Birds may rise up from ponds and fly away, or flocks may arrive from distant points and settle in for the night. Often cranes arrive just after sunset. The birds in this photograph are geese, most likely Ross’s geese, approaching the wetland ponds from that western sunset sky.

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

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspens, Before Sunrise

November 24, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A large grove of eastern Sierra fall aspen trees in pre-sunrise light

After spending so many years exploring the Sierra, and for the past 15 or so expanding my explorations to include some of the high east side locations mostly accessible by vehicle, there are little spots all over the range that have become personal favorites — places I return to regularly whenever I get a chance. You might think that they would get “old” after a while, being so familiar. Instead, I find that there is always something new to discover about them, and I enjoy the sense of spending time with old landscape friends!

This is one of those places. In this case, I have to drive to get to it, but it is still typically a nicely lonely place, and I often have it entirely to myself at dawn. A person or two might pass by, but that’s about it. (Though, funny story, this time as I took in the view a small vehicle carrying four deer hunters passed by. We waved and they kept going. Later, as I descended from this spot, heading in the direction from which they had come, I passed through a herd of a dozen deer right on the road.) I usually go before dawn and watch the first light strike the highest peaks and work its way down into the valleys. I made this photograph before the direct sunlight had arrived.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Fall Color, Eastern Sierra Foothills

November 19, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Colorful aspen groves ascend the foothills in the Eastern Sierra Nevada

Indeed, I’m still going through this year’s photographs of fall color and other autumn subjects. It actually turned out to be a very beautiful fall in and around the Sierra Nevada. I suspect that the return to normal (actually above normal) precipitation had a big influence, and the contrast with the previous five drought years was quite large. I managed several trips into the range during the month of October, the prime time for most fall color, visiting the east side and also Yosemite Valley.

The best aspen color came, as it typically would in my experience, about a week and a half into October. The color begins earlier than that at high elevations and among some of the smaller trees, and then it generally works its way downward over a period of perhaps three weeks or so. I made this photograph right in the heart of that period, on a three-day foray that took me to a variety of locations. (I’ve been photographing this subject long enough that if I encounter less than stellar conditions I can usually pick up and quickly move to something better.) This spot is pretty well known and easily visible from US 395. I have photographed it many times, and now I’m either looking for astonishing and rare conditions or else a perspective that is a bit different. This photograph looks down into a group of large trees that are backed by a carpet of smaller trees, at peak color and ascending the hills toward the Sierra crest, all illuminated by very late afternoon light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: mountains

Land And Sea

Post-Sunset Geese

Aspens, Before Sunrise

Fall Color, Eastern Sierra Foothills

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