Tag Archives: tree

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

Dawn Light, Fog, Marsh and Tree

February 16, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Early morning fog above a marsh briefly glows with pink dawn light, San Joaquin Valley

The winter season ends all too quickly here in California, and blossoms are already appearing on trees. Especially in this drought year, now is the time to enjoy the sights of the cool season – so when we had a chance to make another trip out to the San Joaquin Valley to chase migratory birds a few days ago we immediately changed our previous plans and headed out that way. We left shortly after 4:00 AM so that we could meet friends in the valley at 6:15 – well before dawn, but just in time to be ready for the potentially beautiful pre-dawn light, especially if it would turn out to be foggy.

And it did. Although the two-hour drive was mostly through clear conditions, perhaps 10 minutes from our destination we began to run into the typical Central Valley tule fog. It makes driving difficult… but it makes light wonderful! As soon as we drove into the area where we would photograph we could see that the ground-hugging fog was starting to glow in the pink pre-dawn light. Sometimes we hang out for a bit and chat before getting to work on photographing, but these conditions created a sense of urgency and we immediately moved on to look for subjects. Soon one of the members of our party stopped and headed across a bit of pasture towards the edge of a pond where the quiet water reflected the image of a solitary tree and the colorful sky. I soon joined him, and after he moved on I made a series of photographs of this scene. Photographs made a moment later in the sequence have more of a blue coloration, but for a brief moment the fog glowed pink-purple in the early light.

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

Geese, Wetlands, Dusk Sky

February 12, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Geese and colorful dusk sky reflected in wetland pond, San Joaquin Valley

This was close to the final photograph I made on my New Year’s Day visit to the San Joaquin Valley. Despite arriving back from the east coast the night before after 10:00 PM, I was determined be out in the valley at a wildlife refuge for the first day of the year. Up hours before dawn, I drove for two hours in the dark and arrived in dawn twilight to find a couple of my friends were already there. We photographed all morning, in light that changed from pre-dawn fog to morning mist to typical winter Central Valley haze, and then we took a break in the early afternoon to go into town and get something to eat.

By this time the light conditions were looking a bit less promising, as high clouds were blocking some of the light, and this combined with the haze to create some very murky conditions. I had more or less decided to call it a day and, in fact, my friends did decide to head back home. Late in the afternoon I was about to do the same thing, but I realized that my route would take me back past the refuge – so I might as well drop in there and see what was up on the way. It was not much more than an hour before sunset when I arrived and it was still quite murky. But I know that there is often a possibility that these conditions can turn colorful when the distant sky is lit but sunset colors. I worked my way around the area to find this very large flock of geese settling in for the evening and, sure enough, the sky lit up during the last few minutes of daylight and into the early evening.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Snag and Talus Field

February 4, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An old snag stands atop a rocky outcropping and in front of a huge talus field, Kings Canyon National Park

During our mid-September 9-day expedition into the Sierra Nevada high country of Kings Canyon National Park we spent the better part of a week camped in this 11,000′ basin full of lakes and trees and rocks. We camped near the outlet stream of a lake located in a narrow section of the valley, with many more lakes beyond our location and a string of them ascending the valley to our south. Each day, from early morning until after dark, was largely spent exploring this landscape and making photographs.

The valley of lakes to our south, of which our lake was the lowest, was plainly visible to us from our camp site, which was situated on a rise above this lowest lake. From here we could look up the canyon across “our lake” and see a string of several other lakes along this creek. A few were easy to see while others further up the valley revealed themselves primarily by surrounding rock and by breaks in the vegetation. Every day, no matter what else we were doing and where else we photographed, we did at least some work around these closest lakes, and I developed a sort of “daily rounds” taking me up one side of the valley to the upper lake and then back down the other, with occasional detours across the middle of the valley. Is I recall, I was making one of those detours when I photographed this tree, located on top of a small rocky knoll in the middle of the upper valley and backed by the tremendous talus field descending from the surrounding ridges high above.

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

Cranes and Geese, Sunset, Reflecting Pond

January 31, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cranes fly through evening sky above geese in a San Joaquin Valley pond.

I made this photograph on New Year’s Day 2014. Two years ago it seemed like a good idea to begin the new year by greeting its first dawn in the San Joaquin Valley, and sharing the experience with thousands of migratory birds and a few like-minded friends. Getting there was a stretch this year – late the previous night I had arrived home from a week in New York City, and getting up four hours later to drive two hours in the dark was going to be a challenge. But I made it and after photographing through the morning I thought that I might just head home. In the early afternoon we broke off from the photography and went to nearby town to grab something to eat, and by the time we were done it was only an hour or less until the evening “show” would begin back in the wetlands, so I shelved by early departure plans and headed back into the field.

I’m glad I did. It turned out to be a very beautiful evening, with many thousands of birds and with an unexpectedly beautiful sky. Often when it seems a bit gray and “blah” in the late afternoon, the evening light can end up illuminating this thick atmosphere, turning it both colorful and near-transparent. That is what happened here as I was photographing a large group of Ross’s geese that had settled in on the wetlands near this small tree. As the light diminished, I hoped for a fly-in of the sandhill cranes, which can be one of the most magical moments of any day in this area. Unlike the geese, which tend toward raucous and unpredictable behavior, the sandhill cranes seem to show up in large groups right at dusk, mostly gliding smoothly above the ponds as they head for their landing spots.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: tree

Dawn Light, Fog, Marsh and Tree

Geese, Wetlands, Dusk Sky

Snag and Talus Field

Cranes and Geese, Sunset, Reflecting Pond

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