Tag Archives: usa

Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Approaching Cranes

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Approaching Cranes
A group of sandhill cranes approaches on a winter morning along the Pacific Flyway.

Approaching Cranes. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A group of sandhill cranes approaches on a winter morning along the Pacific Flyway.

For the next week or so I expect to indulge my fascination with sandhill cranes as I continue to dig back into photographs from the final day photographing them during this past winter season. Of course, when I’m photographing these birds I am usually also photographing others… and photographing the landscapes in which they are found. So expect come geese and who knows what else along with some winter landscapes from the wetland and agricultural regions where I find these beautiful birds.

Quite a few of my photographs of these cranes tend to are in profile, perhaps as they line up in the wetlands in the early morning, or as they fly past me during the fly-in and fly-out times. There are several reasons for this, but one is that cranes that fly toward humans often divert at the last minute — they seem particularly wary of flying right over us. Often I have figured out the place where cranes were crossing the landscape, gone there to wait for them, and noticed them immediately readjusting their flight path to avoid the spot. This group was more cooperative than most. I stopped and waited during the morning fly-out, and eventually this group headed straight toward me in the early light before diverging at the last moment just a bit to pass on my right.

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

Crane Congregation

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Crane Congregation
Sandhill cranes in a wetland pond as the first morning light arrives on a foggy morning.

Crane Congregation. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sandhill cranes in a wetland pond as the first morning light arrives on a foggy morning.

Things have changed a lot since I made this photograph back in early March, barely more than two months ago. At that time a trip to the Central Valley to photograph birds typically involved being completely self-contained, avoiding any unnecessary stops en route, and bringing along a mask and hand cleaner. Two months later and it is quite possible to envision time when things are back to pretty much normal.

Back when I made this trip I worked my way quickly through the images I brought back, but soon had to move on to other projects. Now I am finally finding the time to revisit this collection of many hundreds of raw files (that’s what I end up with when I photograph birds!) and take a closer look at them. I made this photograph very early on this slightly foggy morning, when the first eastern light was struggling to make it though the haze. The cranes were mostly standing quietly in shallow water as the sun arrived, though the tension of their incipient fly-out was already on my mind.

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: Architecture, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Abandoned Building, Poles, Sky

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Abandoned Building, Poles, Sky
Utility poles in front of an abandoned brick building.

Abandoned Building, Poles, Sky. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Utility poles in front of an abandoned brick building.

This is one of my occasional walking-around photographs. I like to walk, and I done this even more during the pandemic when local walks were much more possible than drives to more distant locations. I always carry a small camera that fits in the little bag I carry on these forays. (The camera is a small rangefinder-style camera fitted with a single very small prime lens.) On most walks the camera stays in the bag, but every so often I see something that catches my eye… and I’m happy that I brought it along.

I have traveled past this spot for decades. Long ago it was part of a busy cannery run by a major company. (We could spell the aroma of incipient tomato paste and sauce from this factory miles away.) Those days are gone, and the area now features a growing collection of high density urban housing, but some of the buildings still remain. I think of this photograph as an urban landscape, and the inclusion of that sky and those clouds perhaps makes the connection more obvious.

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.

Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

The Sea

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The Sea
The soft color and light of fog, sky, and ocean along the Pacific Coast.

The Sea. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The soft color and light of fog, sky, and ocean along the Pacific Coast.

Well, this is slightly embarrassing. Actually, it would not be — if I just kept the story to myself. (And, indeed, I am keeping part of the story a secret. Feel free to wonder.) Just a few days ago I read about and saw some photographic work that was seemingly defined by its intentional out-of-focus quality. And not in what I regarded as a good way. My response to the work was that it looked like photographs that would have been quite mundane — bordering on snapshots — if they had been in focus. But because they were not, they ended up in a gallery. And now I present… a very out of focus photograph.

So, what to make of this? That’s actually up to you, but to the extent that a photograph is about things or expresses something, well one way to think of it is that by removing some of the familiar details of the subject you are free to think about larger aspects of it that might be less apparent if you were distracted by the “small stuff.” I’m also working with some ideas about color and luminosity here. That’s all I’ll say for now…

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.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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