Tag Archives: wetland

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Pond, Fog, and Sky

July 21, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A few migratory birds on the reflecting surface of a wetland pond on a foggy morning

This is one of a series of three photographs that will appear here during the next few days. As I post each of them I will have a bit more to say about the ideas behind the series, which means that story will be incomplete until they are all posted. (It may remain a bit incomplete even after I post them all, but that is a different issue.) I’ll use the first photograph to say something about the circumstance that led to them. I’ll also point out that if your taste runs to big, monumental, extravagant landscapes… these don’t work that way. They are, I think, much more quiet, subtle, and introspective images. I have made small test prints, and I think that these may perhaps lend themselves to large prints on matte paper.

Nearly a half-year ago I was in California’s San Joaquin Valley, with the primary goal being to photograph migratory birds, but also with the companion goal of photographing the minimalist landscape, the expansive sky, and the changing winter atmosphere. At one point I saw a scene that was mostly sky — the actual sky and its reflection in large, still wetlands ponds — and light diffused by tule fog. I had a sort of intuitive idea about what I saw in these scenes (which I may describe more in a follow-up post) but I wasn’t quite certain how to interpret them in the post-camera part of the process. I looked at them shortly after making the images and then left them behind as I moved on to other work. Very recently I was going back through older photographs, came upon these, and a way to interpret them as black and white photographs immediately seemed obvious. I’ll write a bit more about that soon, but here I’ll end with the thought that sometimes photographs have to “age” a bit before I/we can see them for what they are and what they might be.

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: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Flock of Cranes, Marsh

April 25, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A large flock of sandhill cranes gathers in a shallow San Joaquin Valley marsh

This large group of sandhill cranes was most cooperative with us during our mid-February visit to their habitat out in California’s San Joaquin Valley. While there are places in the valley where it is reasonably simple to get quite close to them, at this place they often hang out a good distance from the areas accessible to visitors—and many times the photography is therefore limited to very long shots or to birds passing overhead.

In general this was a somewhat different day as far as birds were concerned. The common mid-day lull in their activity was less pronounced, and for almost the entire day they tended to be quite active. Large groups of many different kinds of geese flew in and out, often collecting in large flocks in empty fields. Earlier a group of cranes had stood close to the access road near the larger group of geese. And a bit later in the day, a very large group of cranes settled in on this shallow pond and was willing to remain there as we photographed.

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

Fog, Tree, Marsh, Morning Sky

April 5, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Winter morning fog in bright morning light above a San Joaquin Valley marsh

I made this photograph, rendered here as a high key black and white image, in a wetland area of California’s San Joaquin Valley. Photography began on this morning before dawn, in very foggy conditions. Here, nearly two hours later, we had worked our way around to a different location where shallow ponds stretched into the distance, reflecting trees in the thinning fog that was brightly lit by the morning sun, and with high clouds above.

At the time when I looked across this water I was struck by how little of substance there was in the scene. Above was misty and faintly blue sky with thin clouds. Below there was water, but the water served primary to reflect that same sky. The only solid material in the scene is the faint trees, a few birds, some bits of grass, and a couple of thin strips of levee. Everything else is sky or fog or reflection of sky and fog. The photograph is one of a series that I have tucked away, yet to work on at the appropriate time, and in need of further thought: Do I work with the high key luminosity of the scene, or do I work with the color version in which everything is shades of blue?

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Wetland Fog, Dawn

April 1, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

First dawn light glows faintly through winter fog above a San Joaquin Valley wetland marsh

This was definitely shot during the morning blue hour, the pre-dawn light was here tinged with pink color from first sunlight striking high clouds far above the ground-hugging layer of thick fog. This is another photograph from my favorite Central Valley haunt, where I often go to photograph birds during the cool months of late-fall through very early spring.

The fog was thick but not deep, and as we drove to this area we were able to look up through it and see the predawn sky even though the murk was thick enough at ground level to force us to drive very slowly. Arriving at our destination, it was foggy and still, but as the first light of morning began to arrive, the pink color of high clouds illuminated the fog and created a glow of a somewhat unusual color. I had a few minutes along the edge of a pond to photograph in this fleeting light. The first photographs, like this one, were a combination of blue and faint pink/purple. A moment later the pink became even more intense, and then as the light increased the color faded and the fog became more transparent, allowing a view upwards through it to those higher clouds.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: wetland

Pond, Fog, and Sky

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Fog, Tree, Marsh, Morning Sky

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Wetland Fog, Dawn

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

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