Tag Archives: usa

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

Wetlands Tree, Evening

January 16, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A last beam of evening light illuminates a lone tree in San Joaquin Valley wetlands

My recollection of this early winter, late December day in the San Joaquin Valley is that it was mostly a foggy and gray day, with direct light being quite rare. I’m usually fine with that, since the fog is certainly a strong element in the character of the place at this time of the year and because I like photographing in cloudy, foggy, and misty conditions. (Gray is another story… ;-) On a day like this, while I’m happy to see some glow through the clouds and fog, I’m also often just fine with conditions that some might regard as boring.

Sometimes, even on a gray day, there are surprises. We had photographed all morning, taken a brief break away from here to grab some lunch, and then returned to photograph in the middle afternoon and on into the evening. For the most part, the combination of some fog and high clouds kept things fairly “atmospheric” for the rest of the day. But not long before sunset there was one of these “surprises.” To be honest, when I am watching the conditions carefully and predicting where they might lead, there are less likely to be literal surprises. Perhaps they are better described as positive evolutions of potential conditions. In this case, even though it was cloudy and gray, I had my eyes on the possibility that the sun might briefly shine through a gap along the horizon just before sunset. And that is exactly what happened! For a brief span of a few minutes the light gradually warmed and intensified, starting almost imperceptibly but soon becoming quite obvious. As this happened I move quickly to this nearby spot where I had photographed this tree many times before and therefore knew that it could be my central subject, standing out in the warm light against the flat valley marshes and flatland extending into the distance.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Morning, Round Valley

January 14, 2015 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Morning light on the pastureland and trees of Round Valley and the eastern Sierra Nevada

This lovely pastoral location sits at the base of the eastern Sierra, and is as much a part of the Owens Valley as it is a part of the Sierra. It is green and lush in the spring and early summer, it takes on some of the typical California golden color later on, and its brown grasses and colorful leaves produce a beautiful sight in autumn. It is not at all a “destination,” but it is a place that I always look forward to seeing when I pass up and down the east side of the range.

There are two particularly beautiful lighting conditions that occur here. One, which I’ll share in another photograph a bit later, occurs in the afternoon. The sun drops behind a tall ridge along the upper section of the valley, leaving the steep slopes of the eastern Sierra escarpment in shade while brilliantly lighting the autumn-colored cottonwood trees from behind. The other lighting, which is seen in this photograph, comes in the morning, when low angle light crosses the meadow, creating long shadows and gradually lighting up the backdrop of the Sierra.

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

Geesescape, Evening

January 13, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Large flock of geese, airborne and on the ground, during the evening fly-in

On New Year’s Day, a small group of photographers and friends met at a San Joaquin Valley wetlands location, to welcome the first dawn of the new year and to spend a day photographing birds and the misty Central Valley winter landscape. If nothing else, the necessity of getting up at 4:00 AM on New Year’s morning tends to ensure that we keep the partying to a minimum the night before!

The day began with photography in tule fog, which soon cleared enough to allow the sunshine in. We shot all morning and then took a break for lunch in a nearby town before returning for the late-afternoon and evening light. You never know for sure what the geese will do. They might not show up, they might be there in small numbers, they might land in an inaccessible area… or you might be treated to the sights and sounds of many thousands of them in close proximity. We weren’t sure how this evening would turn out — earlier the geese had played a bit of a game of hide and seek with us. But as the evening wore on it became more apparent that there were a lot of geese about and that they were flying in to a large pasture area that was quite accessible. The time of the evening fly-in is a time of a lot of action. Small flocks join those already on the ground, and there is an almost constant coming and going of birds. A huge flock may be on the ground, only to be spooked by something and suddenly and noisily take to the air. Or them might begin to move, a few at a time, from one location to another, often flying very low. At the time of this photograph, many geese decided to land very close to our location, and at times it was hard to pick out a

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

Juniper, Boulder, Cliff

January 12, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A small juniper tree grows next to a sandstone boulder at the bottom of a cliff, Capitol Reef National Park

I’m digging back into the October Utah photographs yet again for this one. It comes from Capitol Reef National Park, where I spent about three days out of a longer visit to Utah. I started in far southwest Utah, wandered a bit in the Vermillion Cliffs area, followed a back road north to highway 12, then headed over Boulder Mountain to the Park, where I met a friend and got a campsite for a few days.

I’m gradually pushing out the boundaries of my knowledge of this park, and part of that growth on this trip involved shooting in some tricky light. On this late afternoon, between some other subjects, we ended up in a well-traveled canyon as the tall canyon walls and some cloudiness softened the light. After reaching our furthest point in the canyon we turned around and started back, and as we passed back through one twisting section we saw several interesting photographic possibilities, stopped, and spent a bit of time looking and photographing. This small juniper tree stood in front of an old red rock boulder, and the green of the tree and red of the rock complemented one another. I was also fascinated by the complex, angled, and sometimes-curving patterns on the vertical cliff wall in the background.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: usa

Wetlands Tree, Evening

Autumn Morning, Round Valley

Geesescape, Evening

Juniper, Boulder, Cliff

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