Tag Archives: sky

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

Morning Fog, Tomales Bay

May 3, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light on fog shrouded green hills along the shores of Tomales Bay, California

I made this photograph just after dawn on a beautiful February morning along the shore of Tomales Bay near Inverness, California, while on my way to the Point Reyes National Seashore. That I was here in this spot was the result of slightly poor planning. I had awakened three hours before dawn so that I could drive up here and, or so I hoped, be out at Point Reyes near the lighthouse at dawn and photograph the outer edges of Drakes Bay in the very early morning light. I miscalculated the driving time and didn’t get out the door quite as quickly as I planned, and by the time I was approaching Tomales Bay I knew that the sun was going to be up well before I got to my original goal.

As I drove through the redwood forest approaching the coast it was very foggy, a bit to my surprise since the forecast had not mentioned this. At first I thought that the fog might extend the early morning shooting a bit, but as I arrived near Olema and then headed out on the road along Tomales Bay, it was clear (literally!) that the fog was lifting and that if I was going to shoot the early light it had to be right then and there. I pulled over at a spot where some interesting buildings stand in the shallow waters along the shoreline, unloaded my gear and walked a bit to make some shots here. I was surprised by the cold. Here by the water, where the nighttime temperature are typically moderated quite a bit, it was about 30 degrees! The first light was beginning to angle across the low, green hills on the other side of the bay as the wispy fog began to disperse, so I made a simple photograph of the water of the bay, with water plants in the foreground, the color gradient fading from dark blue to near white, and the hills beyond.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Cottonwood Trees and Sandstone Towers, Morning

April 22, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cottonwood trees grow in Courthouse Wash with sandstone towers in morning light, Arches National Park

This is not exactly an iconic spot at Arches National Park, a place that is overflowing with icons. Very early on this morning we had engaged in icon photography, from a location near the top of a hill that provided a truly panoramic perspective on huge swathes of the park and from which I had photographed beautiful sandstone structures in the first light and the backlit, haze-filled vista looking toward the La Sal Mountains. We finished there and started to move on, having only vague ideas about what to photograph next, but knowing that if we kept our eyes open we could hardly avoid finding other subjects.

Descending into a wash to cross a stream bed, we came upon a large number of cottonwood trees lining the waterway. These trees were just beginning to transition to their brilliant fall colors, so we stopped. At first I dropped into the wash and made some close up photographs of the leaves themselves, along with some close shots of trees against sky and the nearby sandstone cliffs. Finishing with that I climbed back up to the roadway and there in front of me was another row of colorful trees where the creek emerged from under a bridge, and beyond that some of the same towers that I had earlier photographed from their far side now appeared almost back-lit and with a rim of morning light along their left sides.

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

Trees and Pond, Winter Morning

April 20, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A row of winter trees stands along a frost-rimmed San Joaquin Valley pond

To me, this photograph looks deceptively warm, perhaps due to the warm color of some of the light and the distant fields beyond the trees. The truth is that it was freezing cold! The temperature was in the upper 20’s (cold for Californians!) and the air was damp as it always is this time of year in these marshy valley lowlands and there was thick frost on the ground.

We were here to photograph migratory birds once again. At this location, an official wildlife refuge, a perimeter road circles the place, and it is pretty much our routine to circle it more than once on our visits. The first pass is typically right around dawn, as was the case this time, and often seems to be in thick or – if we are lucky – clearing fog. Later circuits often reveal changing light, thinning fog, different birds, and warmer temperatures – until a final trip around the loop usually concludes with us shooting into the dusk period until there is no longer enough light for photography. Near one corner of the loop there is a parking area, an observation deck, and nearby short trail. (Hiking is not permitted in most of the refuge, as people hidden in cars are apparently perceived to be less threatening by the birds.) When we stop here I almost always do at least a momentary transition from wildlife photographer to landscape photographer and make a few photographs that don’t include birds at all. This pond and the row of bare trees on a levee along one side have attracted my attention almost every time I visit here, and seem to suggest to me something about the vast flat agricultural terrain of this part of the valley.

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

Four Ross’s Geese, Sunset Light

April 14, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Four Ross’s geese in flight against the sky in sunset light

I photographed this group of Ross’s geese late in the day, just as golden hour light was beginning to intensify. We had spent the day in the San Joaquin Valley, visiting a couple of wildlife refuges, and returned at the end of the day to the place where we had begun shooting before dawn. We hoped for some combination of evening geese and then a dusk fly-in of sandhill cranes.

The amount of control you have when photographing these birds is minimal. It is up to them to decide where they will settle in, when and in what direction they will fly, and much more. A lot of the process involves doing things that you hope will increase your odds – being in likely spots at likely times, and so forth – then being ready to take advantage of whatever comes your way. The latter requires some sensitivity to how things are developing, some experience with the camera so that you can make decisions quickly and track flying birds that may turn up unexpectedly, and more. The situation with the geese on this evening was a bit unusual, at least in my experience. At this place we have often been able to find very large flocks of the birds late in the day, at which point a reasonable strategy is to position yourself nearby, taking into consideration the direction of the light, possible backgrounds, and the paths they will likely fly. Then you wait, ready to photograph, until the birds decide to do what birds decide to do! With luck, they will lift off in interesting groups, against interesting backdrops, and in good light. On this evening, we were only able to find one relatively small group of Ross’s geese. (We saw other much larger groups in the area, but they were further off and in places inaccessible to us.) So we found out spot nearby and waited, photographing very small groups of them as they lifted off and flow to the north. However, a few groups did an extra loop or two around us, coming back over our position quite low. You never know how the birds will line up, and often they will ether be too separated from one another or else they are so tightly clustered that you get blocked heads or wings that cover other birds. However, this group was polite enough to line themselves up in such a way that as they flew past each of them was completely visible in the evening light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sky

Morning Fog, Tomales Bay

Cottonwood Trees and Sandstone Towers, Morning

Trees and Pond, Winter Morning

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