Tag Archives: valley

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

Cranes and Geese, Sunset, Reflecting Pond

January 31, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cranes fly through evening sky above geese in a San Joaquin Valley pond.

I made this photograph on New Year’s Day 2014. Two years ago it seemed like a good idea to begin the new year by greeting its first dawn in the San Joaquin Valley, and sharing the experience with thousands of migratory birds and a few like-minded friends. Getting there was a stretch this year – late the previous night I had arrived home from a week in New York City, and getting up four hours later to drive two hours in the dark was going to be a challenge. But I made it and after photographing through the morning I thought that I might just head home. In the early afternoon we broke off from the photography and went to nearby town to grab something to eat, and by the time we were done it was only an hour or less until the evening “show” would begin back in the wetlands, so I shelved by early departure plans and headed back into the field.

I’m glad I did. It turned out to be a very beautiful evening, with many thousands of birds and with an unexpectedly beautiful sky. Often when it seems a bit gray and “blah” in the late afternoon, the evening light can end up illuminating this thick atmosphere, turning it both colorful and near-transparent. That is what happened here as I was photographing a large group of Ross’s geese that had settled in on the wetlands near this small tree. As the light diminished, I hoped for a fly-in of the sandhill cranes, which can be one of the most magical moments of any day in this area. Unlike the geese, which tend toward raucous and unpredictable behavior, the sandhill cranes seem to show up in large groups right at dusk, mostly gliding smoothly above the ponds as they head for their landing spots.

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: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Geese in Flight, Dusk

January 15, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A flock of geese takes to the air at dusk, San Joaquin Valley

After nearly a week in the dry and desiccated (and cold!) terrain of Death Valley National Park, I decided to break up my homeward drive with an evening stop in California’s San Joaquin Valley to photograph migratory birds. It is hard to imagine two places that are more different. Death Valley is mostly hard edged, dry, with only the hardiest vegetation, and a place of scarce wildlife. The San Joaquin is largely farmland, albeit due to irrigation, and where I went there is a lot of water and many thousands of birds. It was quite a contrast with where I had been and a sort of “welcome home” to a world that I am more accustomed to.

I arrived perhaps an hour before sunset, after a long drive that had begun early in the morning on the far side of the Sierra – and with a couple of hours of driving still to do. I drove across narrow farmland roads to get to the refuge, where I stopped and sat for a few moments before switching into “wildlife photographer mode.” As I had approached the place I had spotted a very large flock of Ross’s geese along the roadway that runs along the refuge, so I made steady progress back to this spot, where I figured I would do my evening photography. There was a very large group of geese already when I got there, and more were arriving from other far off locations. The geese mostly settle in on the pasture land and eat, but every so often something disturbs them and they take off en masse in a wild maelstrom of flapping wings and noise, fly around a few times, and soon return to almost the spot they left. There were two or three such giant “explosions” of flying geese as I photographed, and I shot this group using a rather slow shutter speed in post sunset dusk light.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Desert Mountains and Valley

January 14, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Receding desert mountains about the Amargosa Valley, Death Valley National Park

At first look, the general scene here might not have appeared to offer too many photographic opportunities. Although it was still somewhat early in the morning, it was well past the “first light” phase that can make almost any subject look beautiful. There was a great deal of atmospheric haze, and it almost obscured the far mountain ranges. And, as seen in the lower portion of this photograph, while the location is in high and rugged mountains, it is an extremely spare landscape with few plants and only the subtlest of colors from the high desert sage and similar plants.

But, for me, several things were going on here. First, I like haze! Second, a few years ago, after many years of photographing in the Death Valley landscape, I began to look beyond the familiar and more obvious beauties of sunrise and sunset light in dramatic locations in the Valley, and to try to figure out how to photograph more subtle and complex beauties that I encountered at other times and in other locations. I had found myself most often driving through locations like this one, on my way to other places that I presumed would be more interesting. Yet, even though I wasn’t photographing this sort of place, I was having pleasant experiences in them and developing an affinity for them. On one trip it hit me that if I liked being here, there must be some what to make photographs that somehow expressed what it was in these apparently barren places that made me like them. So I stopped here for some time, in a place that might seem like many other places along this route, and I looked around.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Sandhill Cranes, Marsh, Dawn

January 7, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Flocks of sandhill cranes fly through dawn haze above San Joaquin Valley marshland

This is another New Year’s Day photograph – and probably won’t be the last one. The typical process when I shoot here is to start at a parking area near the entrance before the sun comes up, either meeting friends there or else simply pausing to get my gear ready and put on warm clothes. Without fail, I also pause for a few minutes to take in the extraordinary sound of the many thousands of migratory birds, usually coming from unseen places off in the mist or fog, and the sound always makes me smile. I may make a few initial photographs in the dim predawn light, and then I usually move off to start looking for subjects.

On this morning I began my “move” before the sun came up, but moments later I looked over my shoulder to see the first light of the rising sun, and I quickly found this location with a small gap in the tules, a bare tree, and some reflecting water, and I lined them up with the rising sun. In this foggy valley, when the fog is not too thick, there is a brief interval of perhaps a minute or two when the globe of the sun rises behind the fog, which mutes the light and allows me to shoot straight into the sun. Also right about dawn, flights of sandhill cranes lift off and fly in lines above the landscape – and on this morning the two ephemeral events happened simultaneously.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: valley

Cranes and Geese, Sunset, Reflecting Pond

Geese in Flight, Dusk

Desert Mountains and Valley

Sandhill Cranes, Marsh, Dawn

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