A male redwing blackbird perches on winter vegetation.
Redwing blackbirds, especially when they flock together, seem like some of the most exuberant birds in my part of the world. On the ideal morning, hundreds (or more!) of them may assemble on a tree or among reeds, chirping and singing enthusiastically… only to suddenly and unexpectedly take to the air in tightly spaced groups whose flight patterns are amazing.
I didn’t have quite that experience on this occasion, but it was still a worthwhile moment. This bird was perched by itself on this winter wetland vegetation. As the male birds do, he was showing off his bright red wing patches as he faced m , with the wetland landscape barely visible in the distant background
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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
A California winter landscape photograph reduced to its compositional fundamentals.
This photograph fits into a category I describe as “imaginary landscapes,” a type defined loosely by where it sits along the continuum between supposed representational reality and abstraction of landscape-derived materials. That might seem an overly-wordy way to describe it, but I’m always cognizant of the fact that no landscape photograph is truly objective or fully “real” — all photographs and certainly all landscape photographs necessarily are subjective. This could be due to something as basic (and obvious!) as the fact that the photographer chose to point the camera at some specific thing (and not at other things). It includes equipment choices( length of lens, aperture, etc.), basic interpretive choices (color or black and white, and how to handle either of those), and much, much more. In my “imaginary landscape” photographs I think I’m simply making this stuff more plainly obvious.
This one also illustrates, I think, something that figures into the landscape (but not just landscape!) photographs of virtually every photographer that I know of — the photograph is not just about the ostensible subject of the image. For most photographers other things also appeal — the shapes of things, their colors (a huge topic, by the way), how the components fit together, how things may be suggested rather than declared, and more. Allow me to make a musical analogy here. There’s a famous (or infamous) piece by composer/philosopher John Cage called 4’33”. In it a performer, takes the stage in the manner of any classical performer, then sits in front of a (usually) piano silently for 4′ 33″. One way to look at this is to recognize that Cage gave us every element of a musical performance but the one we think is central, thus forcing us to think about all of those “other details” and their central role in our perception of music. A photograph with no details (“the horror!”) may work in a somewhat similar (though not quite identical) way. Or maybe you just like the colors? ;-)
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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
A small flock of sandhill cranes at the edge of a small island and reflected on a pond on a foggy morning.
Sometimes I photograph birds (and other subjects) accompanied by various friends and fellow photographers. Other times I go alone. I enjoy both, though there is something special about being “out there” in the wilds on my own as I was on the morning when I made this photograph. Working alone (and sometimes working with kindred spirits, too) allows a kind of intense focus on the subject that borders on obsessions. But, perhaps ironically, it also permits a sort of slow and aimless work that simply allows things to happen.
This was that kind of morning. I was, indeed, quite focused on locating and photographing birds and the foggy morning landscape, and an observer might have wondered when I occasionally stopped and worked one subject for extended periods of time. These cranes were standing in shallow water, and I watched them for some time until they finally seemed to have had enough of me, and they took flight and departed for some distant location.
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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
Every New Year’s Day for the past few years I have made it a goal to be out in the natural world when the first sun of the new year rises. While this does tend to interfere with New Year’s Eve revelry — hard to stay up until midnight when you have to wake up at 3:30 am — it has produced some pretty special New Year’s Days, especially since some friends have taken to joining us.
We were “out there” again this year, and the day did not disappoint. As I like to say, “We great the actual dawn of the new year” together — sharing photography, wonder, snacks, a meal, a morning champagne toast, and more. Late in the day this year I looked toward the sky and saw some lovely clouds in the south, so I tilted my camera up and made this photograph.
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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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