Near the end of May we did a weeklong walk in England’s Cotswolds. Ours was not the longest walk, and our mileage was less than it might have been on more aggressive walks. (Basically, we did an out-and-back loop starting and ending at Moreton-in-Marsh.) The plan was to enjoy the walking, but have plenty of time and energy to enjoy the towns we passed through and stayed in each night.
Continue reading Four Cotswolds Trees
While on the Isle of Skye this past May we stayed at an out-of-the-way lodge a few miles out on a gravel single track road along Loch Snizort Beag. We may have thought that we were at the ends of the earth when we first turned off the main road onto that track, but we came to appreciate the isolation, the views… and the sheep. They filled the pastures along the road and occasionally entered the roadway itself.
Continue reading Two Trees, Stone Wall
Near the end of October last year, while returning from a fall color visit to the Western Sierra Nevada, I decided to make a stop at a Central Valley location where I have photographed migratory birds in the past. I wasn’t expecting to find the winter birds that I usually see there, but I was surprised to find large numbers of other birds that usually diminish at this spot later in the season. Among them were large groups of great egrets.
Continue reading Egret and Chick, Evening
During the first half of September I spent a few days camping and photographing in the Tuolumne Meadows area. On two of those day I wandered into Tuolumne Meadows before sunrise. There was fog one day — not the one in this photograph — and haze from wildfire smoke on both. Here the trees, being close to the camera, have some intense color from the sunrise light, while the haze mutes the distant landscape and shifts its colors.
Some amount of wildfire smoke seems to come with the terrify in September and October in the Sierra, at least until a first good storm arrives. At its worst, the smoke can be thick enough to be unhealthy and to make photography a challenge. But much of the time it can lend an interesting muted color to everything, as it does here.
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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email
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