Tag Archives: water

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Dormant Wetlands Plants

Image December 15, 2025 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

My first “real” visit of the season to my favorite migratory bird photography location did not go as planned. (Actually, I did stop briefly a month ago and a half earlier, but things were still slow back then.) I was hoping for luminous tule fog and lots of geese and sandhill cranes. Instead I got thick gray elevated overcast and fewer birds than expected. Ah, well, it happens… and when it does I look for something else to photograph.

This is one of the “something else” photographs. This area is full of shallow seasonal ponds, and when they fill the summer’s plants still emerge from the still water and make fascinating reflections. For this subject the very soft light from the overcast worked well and revealed a more of the plants’ details.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Autumn Flow #2

Image December 1, 2025 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

This is a companion image to another photograph that includes some the same rocks but in vertical/portrait orientation. The scene is an otherwise unremarkable section of the Merced River in Yosemite Valley that probably doesn’t merit a stop from most visitors to the Valley. (Though quite a few park photographers have stopped to make images in this general area.) The appeal is the combination of rocks (at least during periods of low flow in the river), the patterns of moving water, and reflections.

Speaking of reflections, they are the source of the warm colors in the water. They include the light on a very large sunlit cliff on the far side of the valley and the colors of autumn leaves in the forest on the opposite river bank. To notice a scene like this you have to look past what your eyes likely want to see (water and rocks) to see the intense color reflected in the water.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Forest and Pond (Vertical)

Image November 22, 2025 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

This is another photograph from my early July (the first day of the month!) camping and photography trip to the High Sierra just outside the eastern boundary of Yosemite National Park. Among other things, this positioned me for quick trips into the park to photograph in the high country. The landscape was still almost deserted — the snow and meltwater had recently diminished, campgrounds were not yet open, and new rules restricted the number of drivers entering the park.

Later in the season this little scene would look quite different, as everything in the high country begins to dry out near the end of a typical summer. But at this point the grasses were still green and growing, and there was some new growth on the trees, too. There are actually two versions f this photograph — I shared a horizontal (“landscape”) version of it a few weeks ago.

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Photographs: Belgium, Photographs: Europe, Photographs: Travel

Leie River Waterfront, Ghent

Image November 18, 2025 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Near the ned of our May-June travels we spent a week in Belgium, our first time visiting this country. Our final stop there was in Brussels, and one day we took the train from there to make a quick visit to Ghent. As is so often the case in such cities, Ghent has an inner “old town” section with lots of historic buildings, including a rather remarkable collection of churches and steeples.

I made this photograph from a bridge over the Leie River, from which there was a longer view of the curving waterway, the roadway and walk way that follow it, and some of the surrounding buildings. Not surprisingly in this part of Europe, it was another cloudy day.