Tag Archives: trees

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

Trees and Red Rock, High Country

December 18, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Backlit trees in a high country terrain of rugged red rock sandstone, Zion National Park

Since this has been a recurring theme in my photographs from Zion National Park in October, I think I’ll keep the commentary a bit short on this one. I made the photograph along the Mount Carmel Highway, which passes through high country along an east-west route though the park. We had a day here while on our way to our eventual destination to the east, so we decided to focus on this high country area, with its deep washes and slot canyons, autumn colors, and rounded forms of various types of layered sandstone.

In this area the sandstone was a sort of medium red – not as intense as some of the deeper strata nor as light as some of the nearly white rocks found elsewhere. This rock was finely layered in many places, and formed into a small world of ridges and domes covered with widely spaced trees. I photographed the scene in afternoon light, when the sun was shining from behind the trees and creating a sort of halo of light for each one. Because of the backlight, a bit of atmospheric haze is present and the underlying rocks take on a deeper tone. Every so often a friend of fellow photographer might refer to something they call “G Dan light,” and this is it – the light of backlit trees, photographed by shooting almost directly into the sun, with just a bit of haze.

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

Winter Haze and Trees, Central Valley

December 14, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Hazy California Central Valley light on groves of trees as tule fog clears

In early December, 2012 I had my third opportunity of the season to photograph winter migratory birds. (The first time was last month when I made a quick foray to nearby Central Valley refuges, the second was shortly after that when I found myself with a free day in the Seattle area and drove up to Skagit Valley to photograph trumpeter swans and snow geese.) This was an especially great trip since not only were there birds about (Ross’s geese, a few odd snow geese, white-faced ibises, sandhill cranes, white pelicans, a few egrets and a single great blue heron) but the conditions turned out to be good almost all day and I was joined by a band of great folks: Michael Frye and Claudia Welsh, Dave and Charlotte Hoffman, and my wife Patty Mitchell. And what a day it turned out to be!

Things did not begin so promisingly. As Patty and I drove over from the south San Francisco Bay Area there was a lot of fog and continued to thicken until shortly after leaving Los Banos behind, where we encountered the classic pea soup Central Valley tule fog. Although it was so shallow that we could look up and see pre-dawn Venus and the new moon, ahead it was so thick that the road was barely visible in front of us. It was still thick when we reached the refuge and met the rest of the gang, and on the first part of our drive around the refuge the fog was so thick that we could barely seen any birds, although we could hear them. (One of the most mysterious experiences was hearing sandhill cranes nearby and being able to tell that they were airborne and moving but not see them at all until they would momentarily and briefly partially emerge from the murk and then just as quickly disappear.) Finally, as we came around the far side of the refuge we found a very large group of Ross’s geese close to the dirt road, and from here on things only got better. We had hours of shooting in the fog, which only slowly diminished and didn’t thin out enough to let sun through until probably noon or so. But this was actually a Good Thing, as on a perfectly clear morning the sense of mystery that fog imparts would have been missing… and the shooting probably would have been over in an hour or two. Instead, we continued until it was after 1:30, at which point we finally broke away long enough for lunch before returning for an evening shoot. Again, conditions that started out looking unpromising – the clouds of an incoming weather front were beginning to block the sky to the west – turned out to be perfect and even exceptional as the geese continued their show and the sky lit up brilliantly right at sunset.

I suppose that this photograph proves that I’m still a landscape photographer at heart. While looking around the refuge for birds, my eyes kept moving to the groves of large cottonwood trees and the smaller individual trees, many of which still held a bit of fall color. I’m also a really big fan of misty, hazy atmosphere, and we had that in spades. The fog did lift, but it left behind a beautiful luminous atmosphere and could glow in the right light.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Wildlife

Trumpeter Swans, Field

December 5, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A small group of trumpeter swans on a misty day in a Skagit Valley field, Washington

Finding myself in a wonderful place to photograph birds, but without the (rather long!) lens I would usually rely on, I had to think differently about how to photograph the migratory birds of Skagit Valley, Washington earlier this week. I was in Washington for something else entirely, but had brought along a minimal kit “just in case…” but wasn’t really thinking that bird photography might be on the agenda until plans changed and I found myself with nearly a full day free. So despite having nothing longer than 200mm, I decided to drive up there from Seattle and see what I could find.

Among the locals, I hear that the area is especially renowned for eagles – which I saw and (barely) photographed a year ago. But I’m also, and perhaps predominantly, fascinated by the snow geese and the trumpeter swans. The geese remind me of the very similar Ross’s geese that I photograph in California, but the trumpeter swans are birds that I don’t really get to see at home. While the geese collect in huge flocks of many thousands of birds, creating an audio uproar that must be heard to be believed, the swans don’t seem to be such social creatures nor nearly as noisy. When I’ve seen them, they collect in small groups, sometimes very small or perhaps including a few dozen individuals. They seem to assemble quietly – apart from the occasional “trumpeting” – and don’t do anything like the swirling, flocking behavior of the geese. Instead, even so often a couple of them will lift off – taking a long, shallow trajectory like an overloaded airliner lifting off – and then fly at low levels across fields.

Having only my “short” 200mm telephoto, it proved nearly impossible to photograph them in the usual bird photography style – trying to come as close as possible to filling the frame with a bird or two. Instead, I started by thinking about how I could incorporate the birds into the landscape. Here, near the end of an empty road, I turned onto an even emptier road and slowly drove up to where I was reasonably close to this group. I remained in the car, using it as my “blind” so as not to disturb the birds, and I sat quietly making a few photographs as they fed in the field. I decided to go with an interpretation of the subject that did not attempt for anything like objective realism, instead trying to evoke the subjective aspects of these birds, caught in a momentary beam of sunlight against a misty and rainy sky and hills.

Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Wildlife

Trumpeter Swans, Trees

December 4, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two trumpeter swans fly thorugh trees along the edge of the Skagit River, Washington

I was in the Seattle area over the past few day, taking care of some business, but I unexpectedly found myself with a free day on Monday – planned activities were cancelled, flight didn’t leave until Monday night. Fortunately, there is no shortage of things to see and do in that part of the Pacific Northwest, at least if you don’t mind clouds and rain – and I don’t. So I headed up to Skagit Valley, which I had visited once previously, when I spent a day photographing migratory birds there last winter.

I figured I might again see trumpeter swans and snow geese, and I was not disappointed. There were fewer geese this year – though one spectacular flock – but more trumpeter swans. Since this trip had not been primarily about photography, I did not bring the gear I would usually use for photographing these birds, and the longest lens I had was a 70-200mm zoom. This meant that I could not photograph the birds from any appreciable distance, though I was on the lookout for large flocks that might let me do this. (That didn’t quite happen.) So I had to adopt a different approach. As I watched the swans, I figured out that hardly more than a few minutes would go by before one or two or perhaps a few more would make their long, shallow take-off and then fly at a low elevation to another likely spot. So I moved into some likely spots and shot from inside the car so as to make myself a bit less visible. Eventually a few of the birds flew almost directly over the car, or at least passed near by. These two were flying along a row of trees on the bank of the Skagit River.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: trees

Trees and Red Rock, High Country

Winter Haze and Trees, Central Valley

Trumpeter Swans, Trees

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