Tag Archives: print

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Sandhill Cranes, Fog

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Sandhill Cranes, Fog
Sandhill Cranes, Fog

Sandhill Cranes, Fog. San Joaquin Valley, California. January 1, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A flock of sandhill cranes flies low above foggy San Joaquin Valley wetlands.

I often ponder the relationship between my landscape photography and bird photography. I’d have to admit that one reason for photographing the birds is that it provides a great reason to spend days out in this foggy winter landscape of California’s Great Central Valley, a landscape quite different from others that I photograph. This land is almost completely flat, and the fog cuts off even the distant view of the mountains to the west and east. In the fog there is no sky, and there is barely a horizon, and the everything seems quiet — despite all those birds! — and mysterious.

While I’m out there with my camera, trying to make photographs of birds, I’m also on the lookout for landscape scenes that somehow embody the feelings of being in this place in the winter. Every so often all of the pieces fall into place, often quickly and almost without warning, and a simple scene emerges, as this one did. I think my primary frame of reference was the horizon fading in the fog, the scattered clumps of obscured trees, and the glowing atmosphere — and it was almost pure luck that this group of cranes entered the scene at just this moment.

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: Central California, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Ross’s Geese, Foggy Pasture

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Ross's Geese, Foggy Pasture
Ross’s Geese, Foggy Pasture

Ross’s Geese, Foggy Pasture. San Joaquin Valley, California. January 1, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Ross’s geese take off from a foggy San Joaquin Valley pasture

I’ve been out to the San Joaquin Valley quite a few times over the past few months, beginning in the last months of 2014, when there were not yet too many birds there, and as recently as a couple of weeks ago, when large numbers of geese and cranes had returned. (This was a bit of a relief, since many wondered where the birds had gone, especially after this string of drought years in California.)

Our visit to the valley on New Year’s Day was especially nice. Not only did a small group of us literally greet the dawn of the new year in the company of thousands of birds, but we were pleased to see the numbers of the birds had begun to increase again. Among them were the Ross’s geese, who appeared in rather large numbers. While the morning fog was still in the air, though thinning enough to let faint sun through, large groups of them had settled in on the pasture land. The birds were constantly coming and going, as new groups arrived and others left, and as they moved one spot to others nearby, often for reasons that I could not discern. In this photograph the large group still on the ground was in the process of leaving, with a new group taking to the sky every few moments.

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: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

The Aspen Palette

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The Aspen Palette
The Aspen Palette

The Aspen Palette. Sierra Nevada, California. October 16, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Colorful eastern Sierra autumn aspen groves along US 395.

This is another photograph from a few years back that I rediscovered while reviewing many, many photographs for a project that I’m working on. I made the photograph in mid-October along highway 395 in the eastern Sierra, where the autumn colors had finally worked their way down from the higher regions toward the valleys. This large grove of aspens is a fall favorite of mine. The sub-grove extend mostly from left to right across the scene, and the genetically related trees of each group seem to change colors at different times and to end up with different coloration — and when my timing is just right and the season cooperates, almost the entire palette of possible aspen colors can appear here at once. In this photograph we have brilliant reds at the bottom of the frame, blending through orange toward yellow/gold, with a few still-green trees and even a few that have lost most of their leaves.

As I worked on this photograph recently I realized that I made it at a time that seemed much different in California. The two preceding winters had brought record levels of precipitation, the high country had opened late with snow remaining much later than usual, and there was water everywhere. This October visit to the eastern Sierra came near the end of the second wet summer, and it looked like we were about to be in for another wet winter, with early season storms. Then the tap was shut off, and we experienced three years are terrible drought. These trees and others in the range are now under a great deal of stress, and the past autumn was a bit of a strange one. And now, in the fourth year, the Sierra is still experiencing far below normal snowfall and far above-normal temperatures.

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.
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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Fading Autumn Color

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Fading Autumn Color
Fading Autumn Color

Fading Autumn Color. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. October 11, 1013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Eastern Sierra aspen trees near Conway Summit transition from full color to bare trunks

As I’ve worked on a project recently, I have been going through virtually almost all of my photographs of Sierra Nevada fall color, and along the way I have rediscovered photographs that I had forgotten or, in some cases, never really looked at seriously before. I know many photographers who have this same experience of wondering why they missed certain images when they made them, and then only “found” them much later when revisiting their archives. (I have some theories about how and why this happens, but I’ll save them for another time.)

There are some bands of aspens running up a narrow valley in this area of the eastern Sierra. I had seen them many times before but either they were not in the right condition, in poor light (their location makes light challenging), or I was unable to stop. On this particular visit I managed to find a place from which to view them, and the trees were at that wonderful stage when some leaves are in peak color but others have fallen, and the beautiful white trunks become more visible.

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.
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.