Tag Archives: tree

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

Female Redwing Blackbirds

July 4, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Three female redwing blackbirds among the reeds near a San Joaquin Valley pond.

Among the relatively small number of birds that I actually can identify with some certainty are the red wing blackbirds… or so I thought. (To repeat my frequent disclaimer, I’m no expert on identifying birds, despite the fact that I frequently photograph them.) I have long been intrigued by these small birds, which I’ve photographed in large flocks and as individuals. The flocks are fun to watch and shoot for many reasons, but one is that as the birds turn and angle across the landscape many of them may reveal the namesake red areas on their wings for brief instants.

I remember making this photograph and being intrigued by the small birds hanging out in the reeds of this pond where I had gone to photograph other larger and more impressive migratory birds, including geese, cranes, and more. The soft light on the birds caught my attention – fog was thinning but still muting the light – as did the warm golden and brown colors of the vegetation and the out of focus background of small trees. At the time I really did not know what kind of birds these were, but I figured that I could look them up later. I did so somewhat later when I had time to work on the photographs from this shoot. I tried to match them with various different sort of common small birds but nothing quite fit. I finally asked some folks if they knew and one online friend quickly got back to me to say that they were female redwing blackbirds… which don’t have red wings and are not black! (He was sympathetic and suggested that others had been confused by these birds, too. Thanks, Chuq!)

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Leaves, First Light

June 21, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

First morning light on aspen trees and fall foliage, eastern Sierra Nevada, California

This past fall I had exactly one day to photograph aspens in the eastern Sierra Nevada. This was a bit odd for me, since I usually spend quite a number of days chasing fall aspen color up and down the east side of the range. But this year my target was a bit further away in Utah, and we merely paused for an extra day on the “east side” on our way to that other state. Fortunately, we hit great conditions, in terms of good aspen color and fine weather that didn’t prevent us from getting up to those trees.

Very early in the morning we headed up to an area that I have photographed many times. There are a couple of iconic photographic subjects at this location, but I mostly got them out of my system some years ago and now I look for somewhat less obvious subjects when I go here. I began by shooting some trees near the outlet stream of a lake, with early morning light behind the trees. After working that tricky but beautiful light for a while, I decided to go around to the far side of the lake to where a large stand of small but densely packed aspens stands at the base of a hillside. I got there before the sun came to this spot, so I quickly schlepped my gear up the hill a ways and into the end of the grove, setting up just before the sun arrived. Before the sun’s rays hit the tree, everything had a distinctly blue tone. As the edge of the shadow arrived, the aspen leaves began to glow more and to cast shadows on the trees in the background. These shadows quickly transitioned from soft and subtle to quite contrasty and sharply defined in a matter of seconds. This photograph was made just as the sunlight arrived but before it became intense, and the soft shadows of the leaves on the slender background trunks lasted just a moment.

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Urban/Street

Red Bench, Ball, and Shadows

June 19, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A weathered red bench next to a suburban lawn and in front of a home with tree shadows

This probably seems like a different sort of photograph from me, but I actually have a thread of images along these lines that goes back quite a ways. They belong to what I think of as “wandering about my neighborhood” photographs, which I make on occasional walks in an extended version of my neighborhood – literally stepping out the front door and then walking. These walks encourage me to see things that I would otherwise miss, both in the general photographic sense of noticing things more when I have a camera in hand and in the more specific sense of noticing things that I otherwise simply pass by in my neighborhood.

I distinctly recall one of the first times I did this. I “saw” two things that I simply had never noticed before, even though I’ve lived in this neighborhood for years. First, in a nearby small downtown area there are buildings with more than one level – and it wasn’t until that first walk that I actually noticed the details of the second stories of these buildings. The second thing I noticed were shadows of trees. It turns out – no surprise now that I think about it – that they are everywhere. It was as if every building had trunks and branches and foliage painted on its walls. This photograph includes these shadows. It also has some other compositional elements that interest me – I’ll leave it to viewers to think about them – and there is something interesting to me about that old, weathered bench and the ball parked next to the column on the patio at the top of the concrete stairs.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Unclassified, Photographs: Utah

Autumn Maple Tree, Slot Canyon

June 12, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The red and gold leaves of an autumn maple tree against the lichen-covered and layered sandstone walls of a slot canyon, Zion National Park

When we passed through Zion National Park about a week and a half from the end of October, it was mostly too early for fall color in Zion Canyon, but things were starting to get interesting in the high country along the Mount Carmel Highway, where we spent most of a day looking for and photographing fall color, red rock, canyons, and much more. It seemed to me that the predominant sources of autumn color here were maples, and some of them were quite brilliant.

This tree was growing along a wash at the bottom of a red rock canyon which in places took on the appearance of a slot canyon. Between the tree, with its golden-yellow, oranges, greens, and bits of red, and the cliff, with shades of brown, white, red-orange, and even blue and purple, it is hard to think of very many colors that don’t make an appearance here. I of course liked the colors of this tree, but I also found the water-sculpted steep canyon walls to be interesting, with their folded shapes, lichen, and brighter color where the underlying rock could show through.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: tree

Female Redwing Blackbirds

Aspen Leaves, First Light

Red Bench, Ball, and Shadows

Autumn Maple Tree, Slot Canyon

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