Tag Archives: preserve

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Egret in Flight

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Egret in Flight
Egret in Flight

Egret in Flight. Cosumnes River Wildlife Preserve, California. January 23, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Egret in flight above water at Cosumnes River Wildlife Preserve, California.

I’ve been fascinated by egrets since I first found out about them in a class back in college. Later I discovered that they are quite common in my part of California – back when I was a cyclist riding a few hundred miles every week, often in the country, I discovered that one or more can be found in just about any drainage ditch, slough, or creek bed with water in it during the winter months. More recently I realized – yes, I’m slow about some things! – that they are also found during the winter at places like Point Lobos, where they walk on top of kelp to hunt for small fish.

So I wasn’t the least bit surprised that a couple egrets were the first recognizable birds (to me – I’m no bird expert!) at the Cosumnes River Wildlife Preserve and in the surrounding countryside. Shortly after I crossed the road towards the slough, where many birds are found in the shallow water there, I spotted one alongside a creek bank nearby. I was able to get fairly close to this one and make some photographs as it more or less stood around on the bank doing whatever it is that egrets do. But soon it became uneasy about my presence, even though I was almost completely still and quiet, and it took off for a spot a bit further away. As the bird took flight I panned along with its motion, not paying a lot of attention to anything but the white bird, and I got a short series of photographs as it passed behind some brush alongside the water.

While I can and did make some very sharp photographs of this and other birds standing almost still near the water, I prefer this one with its bird slightly blurred from motion as it flew, and with the out of focus intervening vegetation somewhat interfering with the view of the bird. To me this sort of image better captures the dynamic nature of the bird in low level flight.

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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

Tree and Pond, Fog

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Tree and Pond, Fog
Tree and Pond, Fog

Tree and Pond, Fog. Cosumnes River Wildlife Preserve, California. January 23, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A solitary tree and a winter pond on a very foggy Central Valley morning, Cosumnes River Wildlife Preserve.

On my first visit to this wildlife preserve in California’s Central Valley (located between Stockton and Sacramento) I was thinking that I might have a chance to photograph wildlife, namely that incredible number of migrating birds that spend their winters in the rich, wet areas of this part of California. I knew it would be foggy, but I like that. (If you have followed my blog for even a short time you have perhaps seen some of my “barely there” photographs in which most details are nearly entirely obscured by clouds, rain, mist, or fog. )

I was not disappointed by a lack of fog! When I arrived it was so thick that I couldn’t see more than perhaps 100 or 200 feet! The Central Valley fog us tule fog which rises from the wet ground rather than blowing in from somewhere else. (The latter is the type of fog in, say, San Francisco, where it often blows in off the ocean.) Since tule fog starts at ground level, it often is not that thick. On a number of occasions I’ve been driving (slowly!) though terribly thick tule fog in the Central Valley, so thick that it seemed risky to drive at even 25 mph, only to look up and see stars in the sky overhead! On my way past Tracy on this morning, as I entered the fog I noted that it was perhaps only 30-50 feet deep. Because of this, the fog has a special quality that is not found as often in the ocean fog that is more common in the San Francisco Bay Area. The tule fog seems often to me to have a luminous quality that I attribute to the light that comes down from above even in the thickest fog.

That was somewhat the case here. I walked into the slough area across the road from the visitor center at the Preserve, and into an area that is mostly open fields in the summer, but mostly a giant pond in the winter. Everywhere around me I could hear the hundreds or thousands of waterfowl – ducks, geese, and who knows what else, and I later saw egrets and sandhill cranes – but I could see almost nothing. Eventually I could just barely make out his small tree standing on a shallow area where some grasses grew. I wondered if the photograph would have enough contrast to even be usable, but in the end there was just enough detail. (It is hard to see in the small jpg, but it is certainly there in the 12 x 18 test print I made.) At first I thought it would end up being a monochrome photograph, and I spent a lot of time taking it through my workflow with that in mind. But something just wasn’t quite working for me, so I decided to reconsider and try a color rendition. In the print, I think that this ends up looking better in color in several ways. First, the soft blue cast that I thought I’d want to avoid, more strongly evokes for me the feeling of actually being there, especially through that luminous quality of the tule fog light that I mentioned earlier. In addition, I think that some of the very subtle color variations turn out to be important.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | 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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Textures

Winter Willows, Cosumnes River

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Winter Willows, Cosumnes River
Winter Willows, Cosumnes River

Winter Willows, Cosumnes River. Central Valley, California. January 23, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Bare winter willow trees in swampy land near the shore of the Cosumnes River, Central Valley, California.

(Thanks to John and Tom for setting me straight about this “brush” – these are dormant willow trees. I have changed the title of the photograph accordingly!)

When I arrived at the Cosumnes Wildlife Preserve on this morning it was very, very foggy – which is fine by me, since I like the moody and mysterious possibilities that come with shooting in the fog. However, on most mornings the fog – even the persistent Central Valley tule fog – eventually thins out and the light starts to shine through. For me the short period when the sun first begins to force its way through the gloom is a special one. For a period (often a short period) the weak light begins to define and highlight textures and forms and warm things up, but the softness of the light still remains. An analogy that comes to mind is that short but wonderful period of the day when spring skiing that occurs between the frozen morning slopes and the afternoon slush – it is a moment that is worth some difficulty to find.

I had wandered about in the thicker fog for a couple of hours when the sun first began to appear. I was in what had seemed like a pretty gray and drab place on a levee next to a lower area filled with brush. Then, as the light increased, the green colors of the branches began to glow and the contrast began to increase.

(I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I have absolutely no idea what these plants are. They are growing in a low area next to the levee that appears to flood periodically. If any one knows… )

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | 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: Ocean & Coast

Fog and Surf, Point Lobos

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Fog and Surf, Point Lobos

Fog and Surf, Point Lobos. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. November 30, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of winter surf, fog, and coastal hills at Point Lobos, California.

When I heard that there would be huge surf along the coast today I headed straight for the Monterey Peninsula and Point Lobos. I was not disappointed! The first – for me at least – winter surf of the year brought huge offshore swells that crashed against and over the rocky shoreline at Point Lobos. A light coastal fog, augmented by spray from the surf, completed the picture.

I used a 9-stop neutral density filter and a polarizing filter on a long focal length lens so that I could get a very long exposure that would allow the waves and surf to diffuse to produce the misty effect you see here.

Obviously, our eyes don’t get to make 10 second exposures during the daylight! I think of a photograph like this one as being “subjectively accurate” rather than objectively accurate. In other words, while this exact image can’t exist in our real world experience, I think it evokes something about our response to such a scene that is true.

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