Tag Archives: san joaquin

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

Pond, Winter Fog

January 24, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A wetland pond in dense winter fog

In the winter California’s Great Central Valley is often covered by tule fog. This fog is sometimes so shallow that you can look straight up and see the moon, the sun, stars, and clouds… but it may also be so dense that you can barely see a hundred feet straight ahead. People who have to drive long distances in these conditions — the east/west drive across the valley or, worse, the north/south drive along its length — dread this for, and driving in it can be both nerve-wracking and dangerous. Some of us, however, respond to the dense fog alerts in a perverse way. They are our signal to head straight to the valley to photograph in the fog!

This was one of those days. We ran into the fog as soon as we topped the pass over the mountain range along the west side of the valley well before dawn, and then we drove slowly through it for over an hour to get to our destination, where we photographed in it until it began to clear a bit close to noon. It was thick and wet on this morning, with very limited visibility and a constant drizzle. But it was also very still, very quiet, and very mysterious as we drove slowly around this wetland area where the calls of invisible cranes and geese came to us through the fog.

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

Wings of an Egret

January 21, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An egret spreads its wings as it takes to the air above San Joaquin Valley wetlands

The great egret is an impressive and fascinating bird. They are found in many places here in California — along creeks and drainage ditches, near wetlands, along parts of the seashore. A few years ago there was one that lived at a small pond at a place where I regularly hiked and photographed, and I could count on finding it almost every time I went there. Their striking white appearance draws attention on the winter landscape, where they stand out against darker background and against California’s winter green. They are, perhaps surprisingly for such beautiful and graceful things, skillful hunters.

I first noticed them quite a few years ago in creek beds of urban areas in northern California, and eventually learned that they are found all over the place. They often stand almost completely still, though if you watch them a bit you’ll frequently figure out that they are hunting, observing and then slowly moving toward their prey. Because they seem so still, they look like they would perhaps allow a close approach, but they seem to usually have boundaries — get too close and they take off suddenly, displaying their large and beautiful wings and more than most birds they really do seem to float on the air. Photographing them on the ground isn’t too hard, though getting the in interesting poses can take some patience — but photographing them in flight is quite tricky. They take off suddenly, and I find it hard to be precisely ready for the liftoff when it comes. They tend to fly at very low heights, often flying along ditches and behind plants. And they are most often flying away from you. When I came upon this one I remained in my vehicle but got ready to photograph it if took flight, and when it did I have a tiny moment to fire of a small number of shot, one of which framed the beautiful wings fully spread and against a darker background.

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

Egret and Heron

January 19, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A great egret and a blue heron in low-level flight

Recently I’ve been thinking about how to make my wildlife photography more efficient. Sometimes I return from a day of photographing birds and other fast-moving critters to find that I have many hundreds or even more than a thousand photographs to sort through. There is a limited supply of pixels in the world, and don’t want to be the one responsible of using them all up. Today it occurred to me that it is wasteful to photograph only a single species in each frame, so I’ve decided to double my efficiency as a photographer and strive to capture two in each shot.

Extracting tongue from cheek… on this trip to photograph San Joaquin Valley migratory birds and other subjects I encountered several of these odd pairings of a single egret and a single heron hanging out together. This was the first pair, and it was quite a surprise. We were creeping along a dirt levee road very slowly in our vehicle, keeping an eye out for interesting birds, and I half expected to see the egret. I had my camera sitting across my lap as I drove, and I probably would have stopped for a(nother) close who of an egret in flight. But right on the heels (tail feathers?) of the egret, a beautiful blue heron followed it across he road — and almost without thinking I quickly grabbed my camera and tracked the two of them as they flew to the left of the vehicle, managing to make a short string of exposures including the two of them together.

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

Tule Fog, Marsh

January 19, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Tule Fog and Marsh, with a passing bird — “Tule Fog, Marsh” — Thick tule fog obscures the view of a central California marsh

These conditions are among my favorites out in the Central California wetlands — silent except for the calls of birds, almost nothing moving, fog so thick that details quickly disappear, and a gentle glow from sun above the shallow fog layer. Mornings like this one remind me that the photography is about something deeper than getting a clear shot of another bird — it is about somehow trying for that merging of capturing and evoking the mood of such a place, and about personally experiencing the thing.

Subtle and uncontrollable things come into play. I have to slow down a lot and look for compositions in place that are not at all obvious, and the subjects from which I can select are limited to those that are very close. Some elements of the composition exist almost on the very edge of visibility — in this photograph there is a further extent of the tules that is barely visible at all. Focus isn’t easy, and I may choose to “go with the softness,” as I did here. And the bird, suddenly appearing at the lower left, turns out to be utterly unpredictable yet important to the overall effect of the image.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: san joaquin

Pond, Winter Fog

Wings of an Egret

Egret and Heron

Tule Fog, Marsh

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