Tag Archives: white

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

White Pelicans, Clouds

Image January 25, 2019 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Four white pelicans in a cloud-filled California late-autumn sky.

My timing was fortuitous on this morning. The white pelicans usually congrats in groups that appear to contain a few dozen individuals. The often stay more or less in one place for long periods of time, but eventually they decide to move. They take off in long strings of individuals, generally flying past not too far off the ground. This happens suddenly, and if I’m not in the right spot, rather than being close enough to photograph them I watch the brief spectacle from a distance. On this day I just happened to be in the right spot at the right time.

I think of the white pelicans as being special. Perhaps most people wouldn’t, being mostly familiar with white versions of the bird. But I had a long acquaintance with the coastal brown pelicans before I ever realized that the white version was found locally. I’m sure they were around, but someone I didn’t notice — today I see them in quiet coastal waters, in inland ponds, and more. But even today, the coastal birds seem familiar and conventional to me, while these white birds still seem a bit exotic.

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 and Amazon.

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Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

White Pelicans, Autumn Sky

Image January 2, 2019 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A small flock of white pelicans flies against a late autumn morning sky

For a long time I thought that all California pelicans were the brown pelicans, familiar to anyone who spends time along the coast. Those magnificent birds (with what seems to me to be an almost prehistoric aspect) glide up and down the California coast, floating past headlands, and sometimes alighting on beaches or rocks. I had seen photographs of other pelicans and wondered that they often were while, even though every pelican I had encountered was not.

It turns out that I was simply ignorant of birds that were close by the whole time. In the past few years I have learned that white pelicans are all over California — in inland areas, in lakes, close to the ocean. They are beautiful birds, especially when in flight. I often see them in groups of perhaps a dozen or two, flying in almost straight lines with slowly moving wings. In my (probably atypical) experience, I either see them on the ground near or in water, and off in the distance, or I get quick glimpses as they fly past me. The latter was the case here. I was not far away when I saw a group take off and head towards a spot not far from my position. I quickly moved there and managed to photograph them as they passed overhead with a larger group of geese in flight against the autumn sky in the distance.

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

Aspen Grove, White Trunks

Image October 21, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A dense stand of small, nearly leafless aspen trees with white trunks

This little grove of aspens and I have a long acquaintance. The grove isn’t anything that you would probably notice, even if you found it and pass right by. It is much like many thousands of other aspen groves in the Sierra Nevada… and many thousands more across the western US. But it is one of “my” groves, and I stop there pretty much every year at some point.

The trees in this spot are not terribly large, in fact they might seem larger in the photograph than they actually are. The grove is very close and dense, and if I step inside and try to walk around I have to duck and squeeze between trees. I usually prefer to photograph it up close, using a wide-angle lens, and from just beyond its edge, where the brighter light falls on the trunks. Ideally, as on this day, a bit of overcast reduces contrast a bit and fills in the shadows. it is always a challenge, though usually a pleasant one, to try to find workable compositions in the dense complexity of these groves. It often initially looks like the process should be obvious and easy, but once I start framing things up I invariably discover little “deal-breakers” in the composition — a dark branch, a distracting background, an unfortunate juxtaposition of branches. But eventually, with patience and persistence, things can fall together.

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

Bare Aspen Grove

Image October 18, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A dense grove of slender white aspen trees after most leaves have fallen

Quite naturally, in autumn our attention turns to the fall color transition, which in the Eastern Sierra Nevada and nearby areas mostly means aspen trees. And this transition can be quite spectacular if you are in the right place on the right day and in the right conditions. The colors — ranging from yellow through orange to red — are often intense, and the biggest groves cover whole hillsides, snake up and down the mountains, and may be reflected in subalpine lakes. But this show is brief, and it ends before the month of October is over.

Fortunately, this isn’t the only condition in which aspens are a worthy photographic subject! In fact, as the last colorful leaves drop my feelings are often mixed — I hate to see the show end, but I also can start to look at the trees in other interesting ways. Bare aspen trees are an interesting subject on their own, suggesting both winter and the end of the warm season… and the prospect of the spring rebirth a few months from now. I know this particular little grove quite well, and I make it a point to visit every season, sometimes more than once. This year I passed by when almost all of the leaves had fallen, revealing the start, nearly white trunks and their fascinating combination of order and complexity.