Tag Archives: print

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

Reeds and Reflected Sky

January 30, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Reeds and blue sky reflected in the surface of a San Joaquin Valley pond

This image could serve an example of how puzzlement, patience, and good luck can lead to a photograph. I have looked at precisely this clump of reeds perhaps a half-dozen times, thought about how I might photograph them, but could not make it work. They grow in a marshy pond in a San Joaquin Valley wildlife refuge, near a spot where I almost always stop at least once each time I visit. The usual reason for stopping at this precise spot has little or nothing to do with these plants, and more to do with the wildlife that might be around or with the interesting light that often appears here at certain times of the day.

When I have stopped here to photograph those other things, or perhaps just to look around, I have noticed the reeds and wanted to photograph them, but remained puzzled about how to make the photograph work. It may seem odd that such a simple subject would be challenging, but it is hard to find a sight line to one clump that isn’t interrupted by others, the water is often a bit stirred up by wind and birds, and getting the right reflections and light on the water is a challenge. But each time I think about it, and I had even tried a few previous photographs. But this time I had some luck on my side. First, it was a very calm and still morning, so the surface of the water was almost glass smooth, with just very subtle ripples. Second, the morning fog and haze distinctly muted what could otherwise be an overpowering blue in the reflection from the sky. (I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but I didn’t even go back to my vehicle to get a tripod to make this shot, instead just shooting it handheld.)

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

Cranes and Geese, Morning Fog

January 29, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Sandhill cranes and Ross’s Geese in flight through clearing morning fog, San Joaquin Valley

While I still cannot resist the challenge of trying to get a good, sharp photograph of a bird filling the frame, more and more I’m interested less in individual birds and more in their environment and their place in it, along with trying to evoke a sense of what these places are like. I think these photographs are meant more to be suggestive than descriptive, and I’m happy if not everything is quite clear to see. (I can tell you that being in these places, not everything is clear either!)

The fog was playing interesting games with us on this morning. This location often seems to be foggy, even when nearby areas are clear, probably because it is low and very wet. Compared to some mornings, it was not as foggy as it can be when we arrived, and it was possible to see some distance as we drove the gravel road that circles the marsh. We found a likely area to stop and photograph birds, including cranes, geese, pelicans, ducks, and more. Close to sunrise, it suddenly became more foggy, to the point that many nearby objects were obscured – even though the fog was so shallow that birds flying just above it were illuminated by weak dawn light. This photograph is one of a series I made as small groups of sandhill cranes came towards us from across a pond. Handholding the camera I tracked them as they approached, trying to make exposures as they moved into position against any sort of interesting background. Here that background turned out to be a few other birds – mostly geese – and some clumps of reeds barely visible in the fog.

Commentary, Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Ross’s Geese, Dusk Sky

January 28, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A row of Ross’s geese stretches into a line as they fly in front of dusk sky on a winter evening above California’s San Joaquin Valley.

The post-sunset twilight period is one of the most special of the day in these Central Valley wildlife refuges. There is a transformation at this point that fascinates me, even after seeing it a number of times. During the day, it often seems that not much is going on. The larger flocks of birds are mostly settled in somewhere, with only small numbers flying from place to place, albeit with an occasional momentary eruption of geese. As sunset approaches, the geese become more active, taking flight and moving from location to location. On this evening, the process was mostly one of leaving rather than arriving, as the flock nearest to us gradually left the pond where they had been settled and then flew off to more distant points. As the sun sets the wildlife seems like it is going to settle down. But then, as darkness comes on, special things happen. In this particular location, just as things quiet, the cranes return. Unlike the geese, who flap and squawk, the cranes have a distinctive and less raucous cry and then float in with much less flapping of wings. And at close to this same time, I often begin to notice that geese are flying in smaller groups all throughout the sky. At this San Joaquin Valley location, it can seem that they stretch all the way to the Diablo Range to the west. Simultaneous with this, if there are clouds in the sky, they take on the rich post-sunset colors that can perhaps be seen better by the camera than the eye.

The idea of this photograph was simple. I wanted to find and photograph a line of geese in front of a colorful section of the dusk sky. To make this work, I have to become aware of cloud patterns and where the most colorful portions of the sky are, and both clouds and colors are in a constant state of change. As groups of birds fly into view I try to guess which of them might follow a path across these areas of the sky, at which point I pick up a group in the viewfinder and follow it as it crosses into the scene. I am probably less attentive to the birds than to the non-bird portions of the scene that slide across my viewfinder, and I wait until the birds appear against a particular pattern or color of sky and clouds to make exposures. Obviously, little of this is in my control beyond the timing of my attempts to take advantage of whatever the sky and the birds happen to provide to me! In some ways, it still amazes me that it is possible to capture a simple scene like this one. Both technique and equipment play an important role here. In order to work with birds that may be a good distance away and in order to constrain my field of view to small sections of the sky, I work with a 400mm focal length. I must hand hold the camera rather than using the tripod, adding an additional challenge. By this time the light is so low that I find myself shooting at ISO 3200, something that would have been darned near impossible even a few years ago. And somehow, in light that is rapidly fading toward darkness, it is possible to photograph a moving flock of birds against a dusk sky.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

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

Autumn Leaves, Sand

January 27, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The thing that most often first catches my attention in the bottom of slot canyons, such as this small one in the Zion National Park high country, is the way that they twist between closely spaced vertical walls. There is virtually nothing quite like this in our experience. But the thing I notice first is not necessarily the thing I remember most. I often wonder how others might regard my photographs, since I know that they cannot share the full context of the images that I know from being in these places. (I’ve often said that we, as the photographers, are perhaps the least able to see our own work objectively, since we cannot easily put aside these non-photographic things that are no longer present in the purely visual medium within which we work.) When I think of these canyons I think of the sound, often deadened by the sand and perhaps by vegetation, and of the feeling of the air, which always different from the feeling of the air outside the canyon – most often cooler when the “outside” air is warm but also warmer when the canyon provides shelter from cool-season winds. And it those canyons with water flowing through them, there is the constant, though often gentle sound of water flowing and trickling.

I also usually end up slowing down and looking at many small things that might not first be seen – the leftover pattern of water than may have flowed through weeks or months earlier, place where the sand has been marked by the passage of a small animal or by grass moving across its surface in the breeze, the mixture of rocks that must have come from distant places, plants growing in odd cracks in the rock, patterns in the rock walls, the passage from one rock layer to another, and more. On this fall day it had been windy and lots of autumn “stuff” was littering the canyon floor, which here was pink sandstone sand, further colored by the glowing light reflected from the red rock canyon walls.

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G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: print

Reeds and Reflected Sky

Cranes and Geese, Morning Fog

Ross’s Geese, Dusk Sky

Autumn Leaves, Sand

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