Tag Archives: sunset

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

Beyond the Golden Gate

January 30, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Pacific Ocean and western horizon outside the Golden Gate

A day trip to San Francisco began with a plan to see the David Hockney exhibition at the De Young Museum – important since the show was in its last few days. After spending several hours at this wonderful show, we came up with a vague plan to go somewhere and perhaps photograph something before dark. With a bit less than two hours to go and no more plan than that to go on, we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge to the north and were distracted by the idea of an espresso stop. By now there wasn’t a lot of time left before sunset, so we simply reversed course and headed back toward the bridge, where we did the “usual thing” and headed up into the Marin Headlands.

This is probably one of the very most popular area tourist destinations in the evening, since these hills north of the Golden Gate provide a classic and romantic view through the Golden Gate Bridge and back toward San Francisco – at least when it isn’t foggy. Since I know this area well, and in all kinds of conditions, at this point I was thinking more about simply enjoying the evening than about making photographs, and when we found a place to stop and park I left my camera equipment in the car. I looked toward The City and decided that I wasn’t going to photograph it… but as I looked to the west I saw some things that did seem a bit more interesting. At first I focused on the silhouette of more westerly cliffs as they dropped down to meet the Pacific. Then, after the sun had set, I decide to go ahead and just photograph the immense surface of the Pacific Ocean, reflecting sky colors and fading into the haze at the horizon.

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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Sunset Fly-In

January 2, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Ross’s Geese and Snow Geese settle in for the evening at California Central Valley wetlands

This is a sort of New Years post – the first 2014 photograph to share – but my “2013 Favorite Photographs” post is yet to come. Watch for it later today.

Last year a group of friends decided that we couldn’t imagine a better way to welcome the new year than to assemble along the edge of a San Joaquin Valley marsh before first light, listening to the raucous sound of thousands of geese and cranes, to watch the first dawn of the year through the inevitable Central Valley tule fog, and then to spend the day making photographs. This year several of us resolved to make this an annual tradition and, although not all who came last year could make it, we again assembled at the familiar spot early on New Years Day. (It was a double challenge for me, as I arrived in back California from New York City barely more than 5 hours before my alarm would go off for the drive to the valley. At least the time zone change was on my side, or so I tried to convince myself at 4:00 AM by repeating, “It is already 7:00 in New York!”)

I drove in to the refuge in earliest pre-dawn light and met my friends David and Charlotte, who had arrived a few minutes earlier and were photographing the fog drifting along the edge of the wetlands. We exchanged New Years greetings and listened to the wild sounds of geese and cranes coming from all directions, and then began the (pleasant) work of finding dawn photography locations. We photographed through the morning and then, perhaps because this was a New Years Day “photographers’ holiday” ended up spending an inordinate but very pleasant amount of time standing around talking as the midday light became less conducive to photography. I had decided that I would probably leave for home after the morning shoot, but I succumbed to the invitation to join Dave and Char for a quick lunch in a nearby town, and when we finished eating (and, yes, again, talking a lot ;-) it was late enough that I figured I would make one more pass through the wetlands. I wasn’t certain how the evening would play out photographically, since friends visiting the area the previous day had reported finding few geese and because high clouds seemed to be turning the sky a bit gray and murky. The first good omen was finding a very large group of geese in a pond close to an access road. I stopped here a bit more than a half hour before sunset to photograph the evening fly-in, selecting a location that would place any evening color opposite the geese. Before long the gray sky began to pick up some color and as the process continued more geese arrived. Then, a bit earlier than usual, one of the most impressive events of any evening in this valley occurred – the arrival of thousands of high-flying sandhill cranes, passing overhead and circling in the fading light. A few of them appear against the sky in this post-sunset photograph of the colorful sky, a flock of geese below a lone tree, and the reflecting surface of a flooded field. Soon there was no longer enough light to photograph, and I simply stood by the car and listened to the sound of the cranes and geese until it was time to go.

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

Geese, San Joaquin Valley Sunset

December 25, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Geese fly toward the setting sun, San Joaquin Valley, California

Photographing these migratory birds involves an interesting combination of planning, intuitive response to the circumstances, and just plain raw luck. (In truth, that is the case with almost all photographs of almost all subjects, but that is probably a subject for a different post at another time.) All of those things were certainly at work in this photograph.

I often photograph in this general area at this time of year – ostensibly because of the migratory geese and cranes and other birds, but also because I love the diverse conditions of light and atmosphere here in the winter (and near-winter) months and the simple landscape. So the choice to be at this location at this time of day was no accident. (A bit more information: I was returning from Death Valley and I had organized this final day specifically so that I would have one hour at this location at sunset on the return trip.) In addition, when I found a large flock of geese in a field – in a place where I know there is a good chance I’ll find them – I positioned myself intentionally to the east of the flock so that the colorful light would be behind them as the day ended… or to their side. In addition, since I’ve photographed this subject before I have a pretty good idea of how to set up my camera to deal with the failing light combined with direct sun and birds in motion, even anticipating how I may have to work the images in post-production. But luck and intuition play an undeniable role in photographing this subject. While I can make some guesses about how the birds will act, I have no control over them at all – and I have to take what they give me. On this evening, they were mostly taking flight away from me and toward the mountains, though certainly not always with the sun behind them. Occasionally large groups would take to the air together, and I would simply track them and fire when it seemed best. Here is where another bit of intuition comes in. While I cannot control how the birds appear in relationship to their surroundings, I can manage to watch birds and landscape as both move in the viewfinder and think about composition even while everything is in fast motion – and, when it all works out, think about how momentary arrangements of the birds do or do not “work” with the light and the landscape. To end with an acknowledgement of how much I cannot control, it was simply fortuitous that this thick flock happened to wheel in front of the distant mountains just as the last edge of the sun was about to slip below the horizon.

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

Sunset Virga, San Joaquin Valley

December 24, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Momentary sunset light on virga and clouds of an incoming late-autumn weather front above California’s San Joaquin Valley

As I mentioned in my previous post, this mid-December day was one of variable weather and sky conditions that ranged from fog to clear to mixed clouds to the arrival of a weak weather front that completely block the light at times. We spent the entire day mostly photographing migratory birds in this wetland area, but also making some landscape photographs when the birds were less available.

After a lunch break at a nearby town we returned for the afternoon and evening light and the prospective fly-in of geese and cranes. We always have an eye on the sky, trying to imagine and predict what the evening might bring, and the prospects did not look too encouraging. I love clouds… but out here too many clouds can simply kill the light that can otherwise become very interesting late in the day. As the afternoon wore on towards evening, it looked more and more like the light was perhaps not going to improve, and bands of thick clouds frequently blocked the sun, leaving mostly a sort of gray haze where we were. Occasionally the clouds did thin and we had moments of interesting light and sky, but overall things seemed to be heading in the gray direction. (This happens. If you shoot enough you will have days of utterly astonishing light, balanced by days when the light is simply blah. You make what you can from the light that you find, and usually something works.) Then, to our complete surprise, a few beams of sunset light found their way through small breaks in the clouds to our west, and for perhaps five minutes we had a light show as cloud bottoms and virga were gently lit from below, turning shades of red and pink and purple.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sunset

Beyond the Golden Gate

Sunset Fly-In

Geese, San Joaquin Valley Sunset

Sunset Virga, San Joaquin Valley

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