Tag Archives: orange

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

Diablo Range, Winter Sunset

April 15, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Colorful winter sunset over the Diablo Range, seen from California’s San Joaquin Valley

It is rare for me to shoot a scene quite like this one, with the setting sun included in the frame. It was a sort of spontaneous thing. I had a very long lens on the camera since I was photographing geese and cranes in the evening light, and when I looked up and saw that the sun was setting right in the low point on the ridge of the Diablo Range I quickly grabbed my tripod and made a few exposures of this scene.

This time right around and just after sunset is what I think of as the magic hour here in this Valley between the Sierra and the Diablo Range. Much of the pre-sunset coming and going of the geese pauses and things seem to slow down. The wild color was only there for a brief moment, and only in this specific part of the sky right above the setting sun, where the low light reflected off the bottom of a high, thin cloud layer. A single bird (perhaps a hawk? is in the upper branches of the tree at far left, and some light reflects off of the surface of the ponds at this wildlife refuge.

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

Sunset Virga

April 11, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Falling virga drifts below sunset clouds of an incoming late-autumn Pacific storm front

First off, the word “virga” refers to streaks or columns of precipitation that fall from clouds but do not make it to the ground. Virga can often create beautiful, delicate, and gossamer atmospheric effects, especially when the light is just right. In this case the condition was back and top-lit by low sunset light flowing upwards toward the base of high clouds from an incoming winter Pacific storm front.

This evening was (yet another) of those on which earlier unpromising conditions exploded with color right at the end of the day. We had spent the morning photographing birds (mostly geese) at a Central Valley wildlife refuge, taken a short lunch break, and then returned to the refuge for late afternoon and evening photography. The geese were wonderful and we made a lot of photographs, but it seemed like the light was going to “die” before sunset as those high clouds began to drift in from the west. That’s OK, as there are ways to photograph in that more subdue light, but I think we may have been mildly disappointed that the clouds appeared to preclude special sunset colors. So we went about our business of photographing birds, not thinking too much about the sky. Speaking for myself, though, at some point I began to notice a bit of color in the clouds behind the birds. I stopped for a moment and looked to the east (where the sunset colors first are seen before the sweep across the sky toward the setting sun) and noticed that some color was developing. In short order, the underside of the clouds began to light up, and right at sunset we were treated to an absolutely brilliant display of intense color to the west. Since I was shooting with a long telephoto I decided to try a few detail shots of small sections of the sky. If you look very carefully, you might be able to spot a jetliner heading into the sunset.

Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Green Building, Windows

April 4, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A downtown San Diego building with windows and green walls

Right around April Fools Day we spent several days in San Diego. Oddly for a long-time Californian and a person who has visited that city before, I really don’t know San Diego that well. (Past visits have mostly been for various conferences and meetings, and I’ve tended to fly in, head straight to a hotel, do my business, head back to the airport, and leave.) On this visit – yes, for the first time – I spent some time photographing at Balboa Park, where there are a number of interesting subjects ranging from architecture to people. Lot’s of people!

We also walked around the downtown area of San Diego quite a bit, as that is where we stayed. Downtown San Diego has a character, as most cities do, but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. Architecturally, much of the area near where we were seems to be that type that is alternately attractive on account of its wide streets and very modern buildings but also a bit sterile for much the same reason. The overall place, not surprisingly, seems to mix up some of the Mexican influence, a wannabe tropical quality that occasionally reminds me just a tiny bit of Miami, and a somewhat toned-down version of the over-the-top LA Basin atmosphere. We were out walking in the morning on a weekday when I looked up as we passed the back of this building, with its interesting color combination and various window patterns.

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Gambel Oak Leaves, Autumn

April 3, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Brilliantly colored autumn colors of Gambel Oak leaves, Capitol Reef National Park

This is a very different view of the autumn gambel oak leaves than another that I recently posted. That other photograph showed the perhaps more typical brown or tan phase of fall oak leaf color. This one, on the other hand, shows a particularly colorful specimen of these leaves, caught at perhaps just the right moment and in the right light in a canyon of Capitol Reef National Park early one late-October morning.

The angle from which you view these leaves matters a lot, as it often does with autumn leaves in general. The nature of the ambient light also makes a big difference. And did I mention the timing!? If you can get a bit of back-light behind the oak leaves, what might otherwise be a bit dull can begin to glow. And the soft, diffused lighting in this deep canyon setting allowed the light to fill in the shadows. These particular specimens possess very interesting color and shape patterns: there is an interior still-green section on many of the leaves that is just beginning to edge towards yellow-gold, and it is surrounded by brilliantly red and orange leaf edges. When I shoot in deep shade – and these plants were deep in the shade of this small canyon – I often find that the photograph seems unnaturally blue, given that most of the light is either direct or reflected blue sky. In most cases, in order to get a color balance that reflects what the eye saw – and our visual system compensates for the blue saturation – I have to alter the color balance a bit and move it away from this artificial-seeming blueness. However, in this case, if I adjusted far enough to neutralize the blue that you can still see on the more-or-less gray branches and twigs, the color of the leaves would probably defy belief!

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: orange

Diablo Range, Winter Sunset

Sunset Virga

Green Building, Windows

Gambel Oak Leaves, Autumn

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