Tag Archives: tule

Photographs: Nature

Three Elk, Point Reyes

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Three Elk, Point Reyes
Three Elk, Point Reyes

Three Elk, Point Reyes. Point Reyes National Seashore, California. May 30, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Three tule elk grazing on hills above Drakes Beach at Point Reyes National Seashore, California.

This is one more – and possibly the last – in the series of tule elk photographs that I made at the Point Reyes National Seashore on Memorial Day. A group of perhaps eight or ten bull elk were grazing along the top of the hills above Drakes Bay when we encountered them in beautiful late afternoon light. As soon as I got out with my camera they moved just a bit further away, but still well within photography range.

There is a typical sequence in how I usually photograph creatures such as these. Because I never know how long they will stick around, I begin my just shooting them in any way that seems even somewhat interesting, perhaps muttering to myself, “At least I have tule elk shots in my portfolio now!” But after getting a few “insurance” shots right off the bat, I start to be more selective and more observant. Initially, I’m looking for a variety of interesting individual shots. These might include a single animal separate from the group, perhaps the full group, and perhaps sub-groups of two or three. I also pay a lot of attention to their positions, watching to make sure that faces are visible. (In this shot, the leftmost elk is partially obscured, but because his eyes are still visible and because of the way his antlers align with those of the front animal, on balance I don’t think this is a big problem.) I also watch for distracting elements, and may stop shooting if they are present. For example, the rear end of an elk is bright white and, uh, not the most photogenic part of the beast – so I wait until an animal presenting its backside to the camera either moves out of the frame or rotates into a better position.

I also try to think the same way I think when photographing a group of people. Their faces and eyes are the most important things, with the relationships their positions create among them being a very close second. Here two of the elk are looking almost at me, but slightly past my left shoulder. The third animal seems to be looking more toward the other two, creating a different sort of relationship among the animals. These things are so fleeting that I sometimes don’t see them until they have happened, so I have learned to not be conservative about exposing a lot of frames!

To the extent that I have control over such things, I also like to think about the angle of the light on the subjects. Sometimes you have no choice – you simply have to shoot from where you are. However, with these elk I did have some range of options. They were along a road, and I chose to stop a bit before their position because the light coming from the left would light them in a more dramatic and interesting fashion than if I had gotten closer and shot them with the light right behind me. In addition, I try to look beyond the animals themselves and be aware of how they position themselves against background subjects. This particular shot isn’t a great example, but in others I might wait for the moving animals to position themselves in a place where the background elements relate to them in some interesting way.

With all of this detail, you might get the idea that I’m standing there making a series of careful and logical calculations about how to shoot these guys. That’s not really what happens at all. Much of it turns out to happen in a quick and intuitive and almost subconscious manner “in the moment.” I’ve probably written here before about my belief in the important of “practice” (something I learned from my musical background) when it comes to being able to work and see quickly and effectively.

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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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Bull Tule Elk, Point Reyes

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Bull Tule Elk, Point Reyes
Bull Tule Elk, Point Reyes

Bull Tule Elk, Point Reyes. Point Reyes National Seashore, California. May 30, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A bull tule elk grazes among the grassy hills near Drakes Bay, Point Reyes National Seashore.

The group of bull tule elk that I encountered at Point Reyes National Seashore on Memorial Day was large and tended to stick together very closely. Most of the photographs that I shot include multiple animals. However, this fellow paused for a moment as the others moved to the right and I had a chance to make a few photographs containing only a single elk. He was even thoughtful enough to pose in front of the rolling green hills rising above Tomales Bay in the distance!

The elk were apparently native to Point Reyes – and much of the rest of California – but were decimated in the 1800s as a result of hunting and displacement by cattle. As I understand it, a small group was reintroduced to Point Reyes in the 1970s or thereabouts. Eventually they were so successful that the herd began to expand to other areas of the park, and the area has now reached it normal carrying capacity for these animals. This specimen and the group it was part of were along the top of the rolling hills above Drakes Bay.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter (follow me) | Facebook (“Like” my page) | LinkedIn | Email
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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Four Tule Elk, Point Reyes

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Four Tule Elk, Point Reyes
Four Tule Elk, Point Reyes

Four Tule Elk, Point Reyes. Point Reyes National Seashore, California. May 30, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Four tule elk in the meadows at Point Reyes National Seashore.

When the day started I had no idea that I might be photographing wildlife today, much less tule elk! In fact, today was meant to be primarily a photography day. We decided to spend the day on a coastal drive, starting with breakfast in Santa Cruz and then heading north to… wherever we ended up. We had a vague idea that it might be interesting to end up at Point Reyes Station perhaps, where there was an open art studio event going on.

By mid-afternoon, that is indeed where we ended up. We stopped in town to get coffee and a snack and wander about just a bit. With no specific plan in mind we sort of decided to head on out to Point Reyes – the actual “point,” not just the general park. On the way back we took a detour down to Drakes Bay for a quick stop. As we drive back up from there to the top of the hill near the main road we saw some strange shapes in the distance behind a fence. The looked like antlers, but that didn’t seem right – this particular area is dairy country and the elk that I had heard about were in a different area of the park. But as we reached the top of the hill it became completely obvious that a small herd of tule elk were grazing right on the other side of the fence. We pulled over and I grabbed my long lens. The elk were kind enough to occasionally look up from the business of grazing and pose dramatically in the low late-afternoon light from the west.

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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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Tree and Pond, Fog

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Tree and Pond, Fog
Tree and Pond, Fog

Tree and Pond, Fog. Cosumnes River Wildlife Preserve, California. January 23, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A solitary tree and a winter pond on a very foggy Central Valley morning, Cosumnes River Wildlife Preserve.

On my first visit to this wildlife preserve in California’s Central Valley (located between Stockton and Sacramento) I was thinking that I might have a chance to photograph wildlife, namely that incredible number of migrating birds that spend their winters in the rich, wet areas of this part of California. I knew it would be foggy, but I like that. (If you have followed my blog for even a short time you have perhaps seen some of my “barely there” photographs in which most details are nearly entirely obscured by clouds, rain, mist, or fog. )

I was not disappointed by a lack of fog! When I arrived it was so thick that I couldn’t see more than perhaps 100 or 200 feet! The Central Valley fog us tule fog which rises from the wet ground rather than blowing in from somewhere else. (The latter is the type of fog in, say, San Francisco, where it often blows in off the ocean.) Since tule fog starts at ground level, it often is not that thick. On a number of occasions I’ve been driving (slowly!) though terribly thick tule fog in the Central Valley, so thick that it seemed risky to drive at even 25 mph, only to look up and see stars in the sky overhead! On my way past Tracy on this morning, as I entered the fog I noted that it was perhaps only 30-50 feet deep. Because of this, the fog has a special quality that is not found as often in the ocean fog that is more common in the San Francisco Bay Area. The tule fog seems often to me to have a luminous quality that I attribute to the light that comes down from above even in the thickest fog.

That was somewhat the case here. I walked into the slough area across the road from the visitor center at the Preserve, and into an area that is mostly open fields in the summer, but mostly a giant pond in the winter. Everywhere around me I could hear the hundreds or thousands of waterfowl – ducks, geese, and who knows what else, and I later saw egrets and sandhill cranes – but I could see almost nothing. Eventually I could just barely make out his small tree standing on a shallow area where some grasses grew. I wondered if the photograph would have enough contrast to even be usable, but in the end there was just enough detail. (It is hard to see in the small jpg, but it is certainly there in the 12 x 18 test print I made.) At first I thought it would end up being a monochrome photograph, and I spent a lot of time taking it through my workflow with that in mind. But something just wasn’t quite working for me, so I decided to reconsider and try a color rendition. In the print, I think that this ends up looking better in color in several ways. First, the soft blue cast that I thought I’d want to avoid, more strongly evokes for me the feeling of actually being there, especially through that luminous quality of the tule fog light that I mentioned earlier. In addition, I think that some of the very subtle color variations turn out to be important.

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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.