Tag Archives: tule

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Fog and Reeds

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Fog and Reeds
Dense winter tule fog, tule islands, and a wetland pond.

Fog and Reeds. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dense winter tule fog, tule islands, and a wetland pond.

From time to time I like to do visual experiments, seeing how minimal the content of the image can be and still work. Sometimes these photograph balance on an edge between portrayal of the real and pure color and form. I feel that images like this can portray or evoke the mood of a subject, even if they don’t include much detail at all. The idea is to suggest more than to tell.

The winter tule fogs of California’s Central Valley often do a fine job of minimizing landscape details. (They also do a fine job of minimizing the details of the roads I drive to get there, but I digress…) These shallow fog layers settle in during the winter and can be some of the thickest fogs you’ll ever encounter. Oddly, because they are so shallow, sometimes your vision straight upwards is barely impeded at all — and as I made this photograph the nearly-full moon was clearly visible overhead. But the view out into the landscape was radically limited, hardly extending more than a few tens of feet and muting details of closer subjects.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Winter Trees, Fog

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Winter Trees, Fog
Tule fog surrounds a stand of. barren winter trees, Central Valley.

Winter Trees, Fog. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tule fog surrounds a stand of. barren winter trees, Central Valley.

Something tells me that California Central Valley residents might disagree with me when I say that the winter tule fogs are among the biggest attractions of the region. I understand that days (or weeks!) of the gray can be depressing, and I’ve heard the stories about traffic accidents in zero-visibility fog. It is wet. It s cold. You can’t see through it. It interferes with travel.

But I love the mystery that the tule fog brings to this area. On clear summer days this is a broad, flat landscape that is largely agricultural. That has the potential to give it a bucolic quality, but the nature of modern Central Valley agriculture is that it also borders on an industrial process. But when the fog rises the world shrinks down to a radius that might be measured in yards rather than miles, more distant distractions disappear, details are muted, and the shallow but thick layer of fog glows luminously on a winter morning.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Sandhill Cranes and Tree, Tule Fog

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Sandhill Cranes and Tree, Tule Fog
A flock of lesser sandhill cranes in a wetland pond in front of a solitary tree in winter tule fog.

Sandhill Cranes and Tree, Tule Fog. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A flock of lesser sandhill cranes in a wetland pond in front of a solitary tree in winter tule fog.

Sometimes the way that photographs come into existence seems strange. We put a lot of effort into doing all the things that increase the chances of success — practice, learn technique, develop our ability to see, take care to have the appropriate equipment, go to the locations where photographs are possible, time things correctly, and more. All of these are efforts, I think, to diminish the role of chance. Or, perhaps giving ourselves a bit more credit, steps that increase the odds that we’ll be able to take advantage of good fortune when it comes to us.

The series of recent photographs of sandhill cranes in fog is an example of this dynamic. They certainly involved all of those controllable factors that I listed in the previous paragraph. But I can’t help but acknowledge what it means to create a series of photographs from, literally, not more than a few minutes (perhaps a half hour?) in one spot on one particular morning. Aside from the fact that I knew it was possible that I’d find a scene like this, it was not exactly predictable. The weather could easily have been different, the birds could have been elsewhere, I might have chosen a different day to be there. Yet, on this morning it came together and this series of photographs was the result.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Sandhill Cranes, Tule Fog

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Sandhill Cranes, Tule Fog
A flock of lesser sandhilll cranes in a wetland pond on a foggy winter morning.

Sandhill Cranes, Tule Fog. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A flock of lesser sandhilll cranes in a wetland pond on a foggy winter morning.

Unlike most winter drivers in California, I was thrilled when I ran into serious fog about an hour before arriving at my intended photography location. I chose this day to visit the Great Central Valley specifically because I hoped to photograph in such fog. As I continued to drive, dropping down into the valley from surrounding hills, the fog only got thicker. By the time I arrived at my destination is was so thick that the roadway was. barely visible in the pre-dawn darkness. I turned off the main road and spent some time looking for birds, finally finding a flock of cranes standing in a shallow pond.

To read about nature photography and photographers, you might occasionally get the mistaken idea that it involves non-stop action and compelling scenes. You would be wrong. Those tend to the exceptions, and they are often separated by long periods of stillness and quiet. I don’t regard that as a problem and, in fact, this is part of the appeal of these places. The fog amplifies this effect, muting sounds and restricting visibility to a small radius. I stopped and slowly and patiently watched these birds, barely visible at times in the fog, making occasional photographs as they assembled themselves in interesting compositions.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.