Tag Archives: sun

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Sand Patterns, Evening Light

April 9, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Low angle evening sun highlights the patterns of a Death Valley sand dune

On my second day in Death Valley National Park — my first full day of photography there on this trip — I made a long journey down into the southern reaches of the place, driving out on some less used back roads and getting into some places I had not visited before. Death Valley National Park is a huge landscape, and getting from place to place there can become quite a production, especially if you get off of the main paved roadways and get into the back-country on the many unpaved roads. In terms of absolute mileage it probably would not seem like I went all that far, but the actual driving time was many hours. I first headed up a canyon toward an abandoned ranch and mine area, then went far to the south and took an alternative route back to the north, using a long unpaved road though high desert country.

Late in the day I made it back to my basic but functional camp at Stovepipe Wells, took a short break, and decide that it might be good evening for some sand dune photography. The closest dunes to this area are iconic and are perhaps among the two or three best known sites in the park. I don’t necessarily avoid photographing that well-known view, but I’ve seen that so many times that these days I’m a lot more interested in looking for other subjects in the dunes. For the most part I pay almost no attention to the icon here, instead preferring to wander off into lower sections of the dunes. I walk slowly, following my instincts, watching to see what might appear. In the end it could be a large view across vast acreage of dunes, or it could be some tiny subject at my feet. There had been a big wind and dust storm during the past 24 hours, and I found lots of newly made patterns in the sand. I photographed this subject in evening light, when the low angle sun highlighted the patterns of newly made ripples in the sand.

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: Urban/Street

Saint Ansel of the Donut Shop

March 29, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sunlit donut shop interior with semi-concealed photograph

This photograph comes from a memorable little photo excursion… that started at my front door. Some years ago (wow, has it been five years!?) I decided on Christmas Eve day to go out for a walk with my camera. It was an afternoon of interesting light, and it seemed like something to do. As I walked through the familiar neighborhood several things surprised me. As I recall, the long winter shadows of trees were appearing on buildings everywhere I looked and they became a subject. And I also saw things in this neighborhood that I thought I knew so well — I’ve lived here for decades — that I simply had not noticed before.

There is something about having a camera in hand that changes the way I see. Usually it is all too easy to see “casually” without really considering or even really noticing what is right there. For example, I distinctly noticing for the first time the fronts of the upper stories of buildings in the small downtown business area. I had no doubt walked that street hundreds of times before without paying any conscious attention to them. As I walked past this little donut shop, beautiful late-afternoon light flooded its interior. Again, though I had been inside many times (yum! donuts!) this was the first time that I noticed the old Ansel Adams reproduction on the wall. (There is an earlier version of this photograph in black and white.)

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

Sun Beams, Clearing Fog

February 17, 2015 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Afternoon sun breaks through clearing fog in the farm country of the San Joaquin Valley

This photograph, made late on a day spent photographing migratory birds and the landscape they inhabit, illustrates a bunch of things that seem important to me. Each one might be the subject of a short article, but I’ll try to keep it short in this post. One theme might be persistence or patience: This was not the easiest day of photography, with interesting thick fog early in the day, but a midday that seemed to be a bit aimless and included an unsuccessful visit to a nearby area, and a conclusion that was glorious in several ways. Another might be flexibility: I was there primary to photograph wildlife, but I was ready to switch gears and become a landscape photographer when the clouds began to break up in the very late afternoon. It also reminds me to the value of not focusing on the literal depiction of what passes for the objective reality of the landscape, and the importance of focusing on the mood of the place in a subjective way. And it provides an example of how two photographers, working from nearly the same spot, will make quite different photographs and come away with different kinds of successes.

A few days earlier I had photographed at this same location, and late that day I had convinced myself that there would be no great evening light, and I left early. Who knows what I missed as a result of that decision! This time, shooting with a group of friends, I was back on track and eager to shoot until the light was gone. It was an unusual day — great but challenging photography conditions early in the morning, followed by less exciting conditions later in the day. Then in the early evening a large flock of Ross’s geese assembled in a familiar spot and a few of us headed there and positioned the flock between ourselves and the sky to the west, where the clouds were finally starting to break up. During the last portion of the day we were treated to this cloud and light show as the sun played peak-a-boo with the clouds and to one of the most spectacular mass take-offs of geese that I have seen.

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

Geese, Sun, Winter Clouds

February 3, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of Ross’s geese flies in front of winter sun in cloud-filled sky

Occasionally, magic happens when out in a place like this, and it makes many days of less-magical photography seem more than worth it. And there was such magic at the end of this long day of winter photography in the San Joaquin Valley, beginning with a predawn arrival and hours of photography in mysterious tule fog, sometimes with birds heard by not seen. Friends were there with us, and as the day wore on more arrived. Sometimes we worked together and sometimes we headed off in different directions, but as the end of the day approached we began to see where the birds would be at sunset and then to pick our strategies for the final light.

Several of us ended up near a very large flock of Ross’s geese that was settling down in a pasture along a gravel road. The birds were gradually moving east, so we placed ourselves even further east so that rows of trees and the western sky would be in back of the birds. We settled in to photograph, occasionally moving a bit to accommodate the flock as it continued its drift to the east. For the most part things were quiet — geese came and went, with groups of them approaching from the west and landing near us. The sun was right behind the birds, which would normally make photography very challenging, but a cooperative cloud bank drifted across and blocked enough of the light to allow us to shoot straight into it as lines of birds came towards us to land.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sun

Sand Patterns, Evening Light

Saint Ansel of the Donut Shop

Sun Beams, Clearing Fog

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