Tag Archives: pond

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

Dawn, New Years Day 2013

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Dawn, New Years Day 2013
Dawn, New Years Day 2013

Dawn, New Years Day 2013. San Joaquin Valley, California. January 1, 2013. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dawn light above a San Joaquin Valley marsh on New Years Day, 2013

I didn’t manage to post a real New Years Day photo on New Years Day this year… since I was out and about well before dawn on that morning, thinking that it would be even more fun to greet the new year in the field than to just share a post about it! We were staying in the Sierra foothills and had enjoyed a wonderful New Years eve with friends in the area the evening before. Although we had planned to “call it a night” soon enough to turn in early in anticipation for a pre-5:00 a.m. wake-up call, it was after midnight when we finally got to bed.

We were up at 4:45 – yes, on New Years Day! – and out the door shortly after 5:15, and on our way out into the San Joaquin Valley, where a small group of us assembled at about 6:30 in the darkness. After sleepy “Happy New Year!” wishes we headed off into the first pre-dawn light to look for geese and cranes and other critters. Within a few minutes I stopped along the levee road by these trees to make my first real photograph of the new year as the first light began to turn high clouds over the Sierra a beautiful shade of pink.

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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Floating Cottonwood Leaves, Autumn

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Floating Cottonwood Leaves, Autumn - Floating cottonwood leaves nearly obscure the surface of a small pond along the Escalante River, Utah
Floating cottonwood leaves nearly obscure the surface of a small pond along the Escalante River, Utah

Floating Cottonwood Leaves, Autumn. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. October 24,2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Floating cottonwood leaves nearly obscure the surface of a small pond along the Escalante River, Utah

On our first of two hikes into the Escalante Canyon we had to contend with very strong winds. Wind is usually not the landscape photographer’s friend. Not only does it create some issues for camera stability, but it also sets trees and other foliage in motion, and given the relatively long exposures we sometimes use – especially when shooting down in the bottom of a deep canyon – making motion blur a very serious issue. It is virtually impossible to stop the blurring motion of leaves and grasses and branches. To some extent you might be able to make use of this and “go with the blur,” but that isn’t likely to work with all shots.

However, there is often a silver lining behind such clouds, and one bright spot with wind is that in the fall it drops lots of colorful leaves on the ground and into any water than happens to be lying about. As we worked our way downstream we came to a spot where a small stream joined the main watercourse in a flat area. Because of the flat terrain the water had created some almost still pools in places where faster flows had previously carved out hollows in the sand, and the surface of these ponds was almost completely covered with freshly fallen cottonwood leaves.

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Beaver Pond, McGee Creek

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Beaver Pond, McGee Creek - A beaver pond floods a low area of McGee Creek below the peaks at the edge of Pioneer Basin.
A beaver pond floods a low area of McGee Creek below the peaks at the edge of Pioneer Basin.

Beaver Pond, McGee Creek. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. September 16, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A beaver pond floods a low area of McGee Creek below the peaks at the edge of Pioneer Basin.

Unlike some so-called beaver ponds in the Sierra, this one really does appear to be the home  of beavers. If you look closely near the far bank of the pond, just left of center, you can see the distinctive peaked beaver den.

This spot was a bit of a landmark on the trail up McGee Canyon on my mid-September backpack trip to Steelhead Lake. Before this the trail mostly crossed relatively dry and open terrain, but starting at this point there was more forest cover, and the valley gradually began to become more rocky and narrower. There is just a bit of early fall color in this photograph. The plants around the pond have obviously gone brown, and  some of the aspens and other brush ascending the slopes of the canyon are just barely beginning to change – what I sometimes call the “lime green” stage where it starts to become clear that the real color change is not far away. The distant tall ridge marks the boundary between the McGee Creek drainage and Pioneer Basin. I’m not positive, but I think that the two high points on the ridge might be Mounts Stanford and Crocker,  part of a group of four peaks ringing Pioneer Basin that are named after the four “railroad barons, the other two being Huntington and Hopkins.

Unlike most of my mountain photographs, this was essentially a handheld “snap” – though made with a good camera and lens. When I’m hiking I carry my camera and two lenses in a chest strap mounted front carrier so that I can make some photographs while on the move without having to remove my pack. This sort of shot, made at a time of less than optimum light, is an example of the sort of thing that I’ll occasionally shoot that way.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Beach Walker, Mendocino Coast

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Beach Walker, Mendocino Coast. Mendocino, California. October 29, 2011. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Beach Walker, Mendocino Coast - A person walks across a beach on the rugged Mendocino coast at sunset.
A person walks across a beach on the rugged Mendocino coast at sunset.

A person walks across a beach on the rugged Mendocino coast at sunset.

This photograph is from last fall, during a late-October trip to the Mendocino area of the northern California coast. The Mendocino coast is an area I have known about for some time, but which I have not visited that much at all. (It is among a few areas of California that I’ll sometime admit that I have not yet gotten to know. Oddly, there are large swaths of far northern California that are more or less blanks on my map. I need to fix this!) We had about three days in the area, and since it was brand new to use we did a fair amount of more or less aimless exploring.

One one afternoon we decided to head north to and beyond Fort Bragg, which is located just a few miles above Mendocino itself, where we were staying. We continued north a ways until the road turned inland and away from the coastline. After stopping there to make some photographs of a forested area we began to head back towards Mendocino. As we drove the light became more and more interesting. The generally gentler light of late October began to be enhanced to the soft quality of coastal light and by the late hour, and as we descended to this small beach I looked to my right and saw this beautiful bit of light and shadow. We quickly stopped and I pulled out camera and tripod and worked essentially from the back of the car where we had stopped. I had only a few quick moments to photograph this scene before the sun dipped to the horizon and the light was gone.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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.