Tag Archives: white

Bicycles, Heidelberg

July 31, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Bicycles parked against the wall of a building of the Heidelberg University, Germany

There are many things that seem to characterize Heidelberg, especially the old portion of the town: the historic character of the buildings, the crowds of visitors, the university, the very young population, and the huge number of bicycles. A hint: it sees that the last three items in that list are related. It seems like everyone is riding a bicycle, the vast majority of which are similar sorts of very practical bikes, and not so much the racing bikes or mountain bikes that I tend to see in the US. Folks seem to use them to get everywhere – school, work, shopping, out to meet friends. Given this, it isn’t surprising that bicycles are also parked nearly everywhere, sometimes in huge numbers and other times in small groups, as in this photograph. (It took me a few close calls to figure out that there are bike lanes marked on some of the sidewalks in Heidelberg – I never did completely develop instincts for this while I was there.)

This group of the ubiquitous “work” bikes was parked outside a building belonging to Heidelberg University. The bikes themselves often seem interesting to me, but this little scene was also full of the sorts of features and details that always attract my attention – the colorful patterns of the building, along with its geometrical shapes, the cobbled street and sidewalk with rows of stones leading toward the entry door and the curve of the lighter stones separating sidewalk and street.

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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

White-Faced Ibis

July 26, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A white-faced ibis about to land in a San Joaquin Valley marsh.

A month or two earlier I had come across a large number of white-faced ibises in this precise spot along the perimeter road around this marshland where many, many migratory birds are found this time of year. The group of them was on the ground, apparently feeding in a wet grassy area, and they were quite shy about my presence, moving back from me as I came up alongside the on the road. On the day when I made this photograph, I had not noticed any of these birds at all. In fact, I had stopped here to photograph some ducks when I happened to look up and see this single bird angling in for a landing. I swung my camera around and tracked it to its landing.

I have a few random-sounding observations about the white-faced ibis. First, unless I’m missing something, they really don’t seem to have white faces! The beak is lighter than the bird, but that’s about as close to a white face as I can can find on these birds. Second, their coloration makes them difficult to photograph effectively. They are quite dark-colored birds, though their features can have a slightly colored iridescence that seems sort of reddish to me. Because of this, if I try to enhance the shadowed areas of the very dark birds in post, this coloration can quickly start to look fake. (In fact, I’ve seen a number of photographs of these birds that attempt to make them look lighter than they are, but which instead just end up looking odd.) They do make a fine photograph in silhouette, especially when a flock of them flies overhead early or late in the day.

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

Egret Quartet

July 16, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A quartet of egrets on a foggy morning in a green late-winter pasture in California’s San Joaquin Valley.

This gang of egrets was politely waiting for me near the far corner of a wildlife refuge that I had visited on the last-winter morning, hoping to photograph (mostly) geese and cranes. The geese and cranes were a bit shy, and as I worked my way around the refuge’s perimeter road I wasn’t finding a lot of opportunities to photograph them. I could hear them, especially the sandhill cranes, but they seemed to be too far off, hidden by fog, or behind the tules. But I wasn’t in a hurry, so I took my time, stopping and watching and listening. By this later point in the season the initial astonishment at the huge numbers of birds had worn off a bit, and rather than jumping out of the car to photograph huge flocks of birds, as if they were the first and only flocks in the world, had given way to a bit more patience.

It had appeared that it would be a clear morning as I drove toward this location, but just moments before I arrived – a bit before dawn – the cool and damp air did begin to form some fog. This was fine with me, as I’d rather have a bit of interesting foggy atmosphere than have perfectly clear sky. But the fog was relatively short-lived – not like the midwinter fogs that can cover these places for days on end. By the time I finally worked my way over to this spot the sun was starting to break through and the fog was thinning. Because of their stark white color, lone egrets are often easy to spot from a good distance, and four of them clustered together were impossible to overlook. As I edged up closer to them, remaining in my vehicle so as not to spook them, they simply stood there, occasionally swinging their heads one way or another. Before I could make this photograph I first had to wait for an unruly band of red-winged blackbirds to depart, and then I waited for the four birds to move their heads in what seemed to me to be interesting directions.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Point Reyes and Drakes Bay

July 1, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Drakes Bay and the Point Reyes Peninsula, viewed from near Mount Vision on Inverness Ridge

After photographing very early in the morning along the shores of Tomales Bay near the town of Inverness, I continued along the road to Point Reyes and soon entered the national seashore. There was a possibility that I might try to meet up with a group of people who planned to photograph the herds of tule elk a bit later in the morning, but at this point I had some time to kill before that might occur. I wasn’t quite sure where I was going to shoot, so I was sort of “following my nose” and the light, atmosphere, and other conditions and waiting to see where I might end up. I had a general idea that it might be interesting to go all the way out to the point itself, where the morning light might illuminate some of the cliffs along Drakes Bay that don’t get that sort of light later in the day.

However, long before I got close to that area I passed a turn-off that I had often noticed and wondered about, a road labelled Mount Vision. With one option looking just about as good as any other option, I decided to head up that road to see what I could see. The road climbs quickly, more or less switchbacking up a steep include and up a few valleys before more or less leveling off high up on Inverness Ridge, actually ascending to the top of the ridge in a few spots and providing panoramic views both towards the ocean and back towards Tomales Bay. Although it wasn’t exactly foggy – at least not in the form that is common here much of the year – the atmosphere was obscured and out at the far end of the peninsula the curving end of Point Reyes was a bit hard to see, and there was a distinct blue quality to the haze that didn’t seem like it was going to work especially well for a color photograph. So I started thinking that this scene might work better in black and white. Soon I saw this steep foreground ridge with its tall trees and dark shaded elements and it seemed like its angle and darker tones might set off the lighter and less contrasty elements of the landscape in the distance, from the tree-filled valley in the middle of the frame to the barely visible peninsula near the horizon.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: white

Bicycles, Heidelberg

White-Faced Ibis

Egret Quartet

Point Reyes and Drakes Bay

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