Tag Archives: three

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

Sandhill Cranes, Blue Sky

February 12, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A trio of sandhill cranes against the blue winter sky over the San Joaquin Valley

Today’s photograph is a plain, straight-up bird photograph of three sandhill cranes flying above me against the blue winter sky in California’s San Joaquin Valley. It is another of my New Year’s Day photographs, for our trip to this area to greet the dawn of the new year and share the experience with a few photographer friends and a few thousand feathered friends!

The day began, as it usually does out here in the winter, in fog. We photographed the sun rising through the fog and then moved on to photograph the frosty landscape and other birds along the gravel road that we traveled. This was not a tremendously foggy day, and eventually the fog gave way to hazy sunlight and later on to beautiful blue skies. The cranes were plentiful on New Year’s Day, and we had several good opportunities to photograph them.

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: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

The Selfie

September 1, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

On a Manhattan sidewalk, three girls dressed in black pose for a selfie as two men walk past.

Here comes another sequence of New York City street photographs, this time with several presented in a wide panoramic format. My most common format uses a 4:3 width:height ratio, but sometimes a photograph seems to work better with something else, and the 2:1 wide panoramic format can create a sense of horizontal space that I like in some photographs. When I made this one I was working very quickly — as you can imagine, this was not exactly a shot that provided me with much time for careful and cautious thought. At the time of exposure I think I might have leaned toward a black and white rendition, in traditional street photography format, but in the end I liked the blue colors of the men’s shirts and of the shaded concrete sidewalk.

I had spotted this group of three young women — girls, really — walking down the street together and having a great time and all wearing roughly similar black outfits. (One imagines them discussing this before meeting up — “I’m thinking of wearing black. How about you?”) There is usually a lot happening on the street, so my attention likely switched away from something else to consider them for only a brief moment, and when I looked back and saw them setting up for that most contemporary ritual, the selfie, I quickly made a few exposures. In an example of lucky timing, the two guys in blue shirts walked into the scene from behind me at just the right moment.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Imaginary Landscapes, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Wildlife

Pelicans and Cormorants – Point Lobos

January 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Something a bit different today – I’m bundling three wildlife photographs into a single post. As I queue this message in advance on an early September morning, it appears that I have enough photographs ready for posting to carry me through October! I think I can afford to put three in this post!

All three were made from the same point on a bluff above the Pacific Ocean at Point Lobos, where I had gone – on Labor Day! – primarily to do landscape/seascape photography. It was an interesting and slightly unusual day. Tropical monsoonal moisture had been streaming over the area for a few days, which is not quite a typical pattern in this area, and the morning started out cloudy. Although it was Labor Day, a bit day for travel and tourism, I arrived early enough that things were still quiet.

On a more typical Point Lobos shooting day, at least one without fog, I would likely complete my work and leave by or well before noon. But the broken overcast allowed interesting and filtered light to continue well into the early afternoon, so I stuck around. After shooting in the forest along the north shore – much easier in filtered than in direct light – I decided I would make a loop along the high bluffs on my way back to my car. I came to this spot just as a very large flock of pelicans floated past below, barely skimming the tops of the almost glassy-calm ocean. With filtered top-light and a good vantage point, I decided to put on the long lens and see what might fly by. Here are a couple of photographs of pelicans and cormorants flying right above the water.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Three Snags, Unnamed Sierra Cliff

October 14, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Three dead snags on a small ledge catch the late afternoon light at the base of a huge, shadowed cliff of crumbling granite.

I returned to the area near this cliff face almost daily during our mid-September photography trip to this region of the Kings Canyon National Park back-country. The area was rich with photographic subjects – sub-alpine ponds and larger lakes, late summer golden meadows, granite slabs and boulders, individual trees and forest, the surrounding slopes and cliffs, and the summits of ridges and peaks beyond. We photographed here morning and evening, and in sun and rain and clouds. Although we were in the area of almost a full week, we could easily return for another week and find plenty more to photograph.

This rugged and broken bit of cliff face had intrigued me before I thought to photograph it this way. It rose above the far end of the largest lake in this area, with talus slopes at its base and a higher ridge above. Beyond it other faces and slopes rose into a higher valley that was topped with very high and fractured ridge. At this late time in the summer season, the face was in shade in both the early morning and evening hours, with only some areas struck by light slanting across from one side or the other. While looking at the face I noticed a small group of three bare snags standing in the sun at the lower right and though that I might be able to contrast them with the larger rocky face, and include them as a way to suggest the large scale of the cliffs. The blue tones are, of course, because the rocks are in shadow, though some reflected light adds a glow to some of the rocks facing toward the left. This photograph may be a bit difficult to make sense of at a small web size, but my intention is to print it very large so that the details will be more visible.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: three

Sandhill Cranes, Blue Sky

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The Selfie

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Pelicans and Cormorants – Point Lobos

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Three Snags, Unnamed Sierra Cliff

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

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