Tag Archives: sky

Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Three Cranes, Winter Sky

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Three Cranes, Winter Sky
Three lesser sandhill cranes against winter blue sky, Central Valley.

Three Cranes, Winter Sky. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Three lesser sandhill cranes against winter blue sky, Central Valley.

This is another “just plain birds” photograph, in this case of a small group of lesser sandhill cranes that flew past my position in mid-morning light on a late-winter day near the end of the migratory bird season at this location. I often try to photograph the birds in some context, whether it is against the landscape of the Great Central Valley or a dramatic winter sky or in tule fog. But sometimes I just go ahead and make a straightforward, no-apologies photograph of birds. Like this one.

At one point some years ago I realized that cranes would often follow the flight paths of other cranes that had just passed by. It occurred to me that instead of waiting for the birds to come to me, I could just move to one of these spots, then sit and wait for them to fly over. I quickly learned that cranes do not like flying over humans. They may begin on a trajectory headed straight for you, but they will almost always divert and curve around. (The direct oversight is so rare that it always surprises me when it does happen.) This trio deflected later than most and flew past quite closely.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Four Cranes in Flight

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Four Cranes in Flight
Four lesser sandhill cranes in flight against blue sky.

Four Cranes in Flight. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Four lesser sandhill cranes in flight against blue sky.

So often photography is about composition, controlling the relationships among elements within the frame —left and right, front and back, up and down, relationships among colors and luminosity levels, lines, curves, and all the rest. This is certainly the case when photographing from the tripod, and it is usually true even when shooting with a handheld camera. Even in situations when things happen quickly, we try to maintain some awareness of how the different elements fit together.

Then some birds fly overhead against a pure blue sky… and one just makes exposures. In the midst of photographing birds in the larger landscape, I realized that I was in a spot that groups of sandhill cranes were traversing, often nearly directly overhead. To some extent you take what you get in these situations, and you don’t have any control over the relative positions of the birds. But you do have some control, at least if you have been photographing birds for a while. Rather than just blasting away in burst mode — which is sometimes the only realistic strategy — you can watch the birds, track their movements relative to one another, and increase the odds a bit by timing the exposures.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Winter Wetlands

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Winter Wetlands
Flooded winter wetlands with broken-down tules .

Winter Wetlands. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Flooded winter wetlands with broken-down tules .

Places like this fascinate me. The location is in California’s Great Central Valley, a 400+ mile long feature running up and down the state, separating the coastal mountain ranges from the Sierra Nevada. Most people are probably familiar with it from driving through or across it on their way to some other place. It is largely agricultural, though these days population centers are expanding rapidly and parts of the valley are increasingly urban. Bottom line? It is hardly a place that most people would regard as a scenic attraction.

I get it. And most of my visits are more of the “passing through” than the “going there” sort — except in winter when I often make it my destination. Winter provides a relief from the valley’s generally hot and dry climate during most of the year, and wet areas appear when rain falls, especially where rivers meet and were old marshes once existed. The soft light and the expansive sky can be a relief from the urban experience. Here, wetland ponds are full from recent rains, and interesting tule islands stand where someone has chopped town the vegetation before the pond was flooded.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Winter Light, San Luis Reservoir

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Winter Light, San Luis Reservoir
High clouds, fog, and brilliant light on a winter day over San Luis Reservoir, California.

Winter Light, San Luis Reservoir. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

High clouds, fog, and brilliant light on a winter day over San Luis Reservoir, California.

Because it lies between the southern San Francisco Bay Area and California’s Great Central Valley — and on the route to many interesting places ranging from the Sierra to Southern California and Death Valley — I have driven past the San Luis Reservoir probably hundreds of times over the years. (I’m old enough to barely recall the area before there was a reservoir, from trips when I was a young child.) Being just another part of the system to transport water in the state, I hardly think of it as one of California’s great scenic wonders.

But in the right conditions and the right light, it becomes difficult to ignore it as a landscape subject. The reservoir is huge and it is surrounded on three sides by mountains. Because of the expansive scale, light can reflect off its surface in ways that mimic what I sometimes see along the Pacific Ocean coast. It also picks up the winter atmosphere, with its fogs and mists, from the Central Valley. And because the road runs more or less along its northern shore, all of this is frequently backlit, as in this photograph that I made in the middle of the day while returning from the Central Valley.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.