Tag Archives: reflection

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

Seven Sandhill Cranes

March 31, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Seven sandhill cranes in shallow water, San Joaquin Valley

This was an interesting and varied day out in the Central Valley wetlands, chasing birds, fog, and various landscape subjects. We started, as is pretty much the rule, before dawn. Actually, the drive to this place started way before dawn and in the darkness, so that we could arrive and be ready to photograph before the sun rose. Meeting up with friends who came with the same ideas, we began our watching and searching and photographing in pre-dawn light and thick, low fog. As the morning wore on the ground fog dissipated, leaving behind the common Central Valley haze and some thin high clouds.

We continued to “work” this area, moving from place to place looking for the best bird photography opportunities. To me, “bird photography” does not just mean birds, but also includes effects of light and atmosphere and the background landscape. You never know for sure what you’ll find out here, but on this mid-February day the birds seems, to me at least, to be surprisingly active. Sometimes you’ll mostly get action very early and very late in the day, but this time it seemed like there was almost always something going on. Large flocks of various sorts of geese would arrive and depart, often collecting in large groups on fallow fields. There was a large number of cranes, and this time they often showed up in places that were relatively accessible to us. Several times we found fairly large groups of them not far from the gravel road that we were on, sometimes in fields and, as in this photograph, standing in shallow ponds. This group was close enough that I could photograph from the vehicle, using it as a blind, and by using a long lens get close enough to focus on this group standing together and—for the moment at least—facing in the same direction.

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

Wetland Sunrise, Fog

March 26, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Winter sun rises through high clouds above foggy wetland landscape, San Joaquin Valley

I photographed this Central Valley sunrise on a cold and damp mid-February morning earlier this year. I had travelled out here to photograph birds, but that is always a bit of an excuse to photograph landscapes, too. The San Joaquin Valley, especially on winter days when varying amounts of fog come into play, can be a beautiful place to make photographs—which may surprise people who mostly think of it as the location of California’s agribusinesses and a place to drive through quickly on hot summer days.

Many things come together in a place like this at a time like this. High, thin clouds were spread over the Sierra Nevada far to the east, and the sun had to rise above them before it appeared out here in the valley. (The sun had earlier colored the landscape as it struck high clouds over the valley, but it was not visible yet itself.) Many of the birds here only visit in the winter, arriving from and then departing for places far north of here. The marshes in this area mark the location of the San Joaquin River drainage, though today there is almost nothing left of the original water flow. And on a morning like this the experience is only partially visual. The air is cold, damp, and still, yet filled with the astonishing and raucous sounds of tens of thousands of birds.

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

Tugboat, Dawn, San Francisco Bay

March 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A tugboat traverses San Francisco Bay in foggy dawn light

As I often do when heading north across the Golden Gate Bridge for early morning photography, I stopped to photograph the bridge, the bay, and the City as the day began. Arriving there perhaps almost a half hour before sunrise, we drive up a ways into the hills of the Marin Headlands and walked to a popular overlook to see—and photograph—whatever the rising sun might bring.

I’m tempted to write that “it was an unusual morning,” but after photographing here many, many times I’m catching on that there is perhaps no such thing as a “typical” morning on the bay. The diversity of light and atmosphere and weather and subject is unending. On this morning there was fog, but it wasn’t too thick and, perhaps surprisingly, was mostly not at the Golden Gate itself, but over parts of San Francisco and the inner bay. The water was visible below and the sky above, but that sky was partially obscured by the patterns of high clouds from a passing weather front. All of these clouds made things rather gray and murky for a time, though as the sun rose behind the fog bank far to the east, a subtly rose-colored glow briefly colored the water of the bay. Using a very long lens I focused on the wake of a tugboat beginning its trip towards and beyond the entrance to the bay, with a bit of the San Francisco shoreline, the western span of the Bay Bridge, and the reflection of a brighter portion of the bay near Oakland beyond.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Ocean, Winter Light

March 2, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Intense winter sunlight reflects on the cloud-shadowed surface of the Pacific Ocean along the Big Sur coast, California

From my perspective, winter is by far the most interesting time to visit and, especially, to photograph along California’s Pacific Ocean coastline. While summer is the popular season for travel, during that time of year the ocean tends to be tranquil and the weather is often foggy. While it is likely to be warm and sunny elsewhere in California in the summer, along the coast it can feel more like winter! But winter along the coast brings much more diverse conditions and even some surprising warmth when conditions are just right. When large Pacific storms churn away far north in the Gulf of Alaska, lines of huge waves may crash on the shoreline. When the storms arrive, the coastal areas can be whipped by wind-driven rain. But between the storms there can be days of crystal clear weather.

That was the weather on the last day of January when we took a long round trip down the Big Sur coast and back. Aside from some (beautiful!) coastal haze that glowed in the midday light, it was a clear day and surprisingly warm for the most part. Along the Big Sur coastline the Pacific Coast Highway alternates between the coastal lowlands and a track that takes it high into the rugged mountains along the shoreline. Vast expanses of the surface of the Pacific are visible from the highest spots, and as we started down from one of these high points we saw the water, with the color and texture of molten metal, stretching away into the sun and towards the horizon, with a few shadows from thin clouds darkening the water near the shore.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: reflection

Seven Sandhill Cranes

Wetland Sunrise, Fog

Tugboat, Dawn, San Francisco Bay

Ocean, Winter Light

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