Tag Archives: refuge

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

Wetlands Fog, Dawn

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Wetlands Fog, Dawn
Wetlands Fog, Dawn

Wetlands Fog, Dawn. San Joaquin Valley, California. February 14, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Reflected in a shallow pond, the winter sun rises through morning fog over San Joaquin Valley wetlands

I’m going to take a break from the series of black and white seascapes that I have posted recently and which will soon continue, and today I’m posting a more colorful photograph from this past winter. The scene is at sunrise in the San Joaquin Valley of California back on a mid-February day when we had traveled there to photograph migratory birds. At least that was my excuse. The truth is more complex — I do love photographing the geese, cranes, herons, egrets, pelicans and more, but I also love photographing the flat landscape of this valley, especially in the beautiful, misty atmosphere of winter.

We had arrived here before dawn in near darkness, and a thick ground fog was blocking the view. As the dawn came and lightened the sky above, as is often the case in the San Joaquin, we could see the high clouds through the fog, and the fog soon began to thin and reveal the sun rising through higher clouds to the east above the Sierra Nevada. I found a spot along the west edge of this marsh where I could photograph back across its reflecting surface and straight into the morning’s first light.

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: Nature

Winter Sky

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Winter Sky
Winter Sky

Winter Sky. San Joaquin Valley, California. January 1, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening winter sky above California’s San Joaquin Valley

From that hour between late afternoon and the sometimes-fiery colors of sunset, a winter sky over the San Joaquin Valley of California, photographed on New Years Day 2014. Every so often I see a sky and what to photograph it, separated from the landscape below, and forming its own sort vaporous cloudscape.

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

Winter Dusk, Three Birds

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Winter Dusk, Three Birds
Winter Dusk, Three Birds

Winter Dusk, Three Birds. San Joaquin Valley, California. January 1, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Motion blur abstraction of a winter scene with three birds landing

Near the end of the day, well along into the dusk hour, with light fading fast, I decided to take advantage of the poor light and “play” a bit with very slow shutter speeds and intentional camera motion. By moving the camera in various ways during the exposure I can control to some extent the angle, length, and linearity of the blur. In some cases it is enough to just track the birds — and give the less fuzzy image of the three central birds, I am pretty certain that is what I was doing here. In other cases I can basically ignore the motion of my subjects and simply think about how to move the camera to create patterns in the motion blur.

I’ve often felt that working for sharply focused, stopped motion images of birds is not the only way to depict whatever it is that attracts me to them. The camera lets us see birds in ways that we really cannot usually see them with our own eyes. When birds are in motion it is almost impossible — at least with many types of birds — to clearly see them. They move too fast and the motion of wings is essentially impossible to track visually. And when we do stop them with a fast shutter speed, while we get to see them with a kind of clarity that isn’t otherwise possible, we may also sacrifice that sense of constant motion. So I started playing with the idea of intentionally avoiding sharp focus, allowing camera motion to come into play and using slow shutter speeds to allow the birds to blur and to blur their surroundings as the camera moves. To me, this sometimes evokes more strongly the feeling of the fast motion that I observe among these birds, and creates a different sort of honest portrayal of them.

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

Ross’s Geese, Marsh, Evening Light

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Ross's Geese, Marsh, Evening Light
Ross’s Geese, Marsh, Evening Light

Ross’s Geese, Marsh, Evening Light. San Joaquin Valley, California. January 1, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A large flock of Ross’s geese, some airborne, in a San Joaquin Valley marsh, winter

Six months ago it was New Year’s Day 2014, and I was in the San Joaquin Valley with friends, joining a joyous and raucous throng of migratory birds at a party welcoming the new year. Today, at the opposite point on our annual journey around the sun, it is very hot and dry here in California, and thoughts of this January day were hardly on my mind until I started to revisit some photographs from earlier this year — and was reminded that we are now halfway back through the year on our way to another New Year’s Day.

In the evening these geese were more or less settled into the marshland at this San Joaquin Valley location, with small groups coming and going. I’m certain it was cold, and the cries of the birds filled that air, and the surface of the marsh reflected evening clouds as the day came to an end.

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.