Tag Archives: white

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Birds, Trees, Ponds – California Central Valley

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Birds, Trees, Ponds - California Central Valley - Migratory birds fly over a group of trees at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge as others congregate in a pond.
Migratory birds fly over a group of trees at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge as others congregate in a pond.

Birds, Trees, Ponds – California Central Valley. Merced National Wildlife Refuge. February 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Migratory birds fly over a group of trees at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge as others congregate in a pond.

In my continuing mission to share as many photographs of this little grove of trees in as many ways as possible, I now present – The Trees In Black and White… ;-) I have shot this little group on two successive weeks now, and I’m starting to almost regard them as personal friends. They are located out along the “auto tour” route at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge in California’s Central Valley. From certain angles late in the day they stand in front of a beautiful, luminous glowing sky as the sun moves to the west.

I made this photograph in the early evening, before the golden hour light. Due to these lighting conditions and the typical characteristics of the Valley at this time of year, there was a great deal of atmospheric haze. While later light would reveal the ridge of the coast range in the distance, at this time the glowing haze blocked that view, and its effect can even be seen on the trees along the far levee. As large flocks of birds flew by – I think they were geese – they would pass behind and above the trees. Often they were in odd positions – too low to be visible behind the trees or so high that I would have had to expand the angle of view more than I wanted. But patience helps. I figure that eventually some birds will almost always fly past in the more or less right position, and here a lower string of birds was accompanied by a few flying higher. As I often do with this sort of subject, I compose a landscape around a combination of what I do see (the foreground water and birds, the levees, the trees) and what I imagine I might see if I’m lucky (birds occupying the space on either side and above the trees). Then I wait. I recall pressing the shutter release when the central three birds were centered above the tallest trees.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Death Valley, Photographs: Imaginary Landscapes

Imaginary Landscape – Death Valley

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Imaginary Landscape - Death Valley - An imaginary landscape derived from subjects photographed in Death Valley National Park.
An imaginary landscape derived from subjects photographed in Death Valley National Park.

Imaginary Landscape – Death Valley. Photographic components from Death Valley, California. January 3, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An imaginary landscape derived from subjects photographed in Death Valley National Park.

“Imaginary Landscapes” are images most often derived from photographs of natural scenes and objects, but modified in ways that are not intended to be realistic.

While working on this photograph, I was experimenting with some techniques for post processing images, particularly to control the visibility of features at the very light and very dark ends of the luminosity scale. One thing led to the next, and soon I had darkened the sky, enhanced the dynamic range in the clouds, and tried a monochrome interpretation of the scene. Then I got the idea to play around a bit with the sky and clouds and before long things had progressed to a point that was well beyond believable.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Trail Canyon

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Trail Canyon - Morning light angles across eroded ridges and gullies on lower slopes of the Panamint Range above Trail Canyon, Death Valley National Park.
Morning light angles across eroded ridges and gullies on lower slopes of the Panamint Range above Trail Canyon, Death Valley National Park.

Trail Canyon. Death Valley National Park. January 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light angles across eroded ridges and gullies on lower slopes of the Panamint Range above Trail Canyon, Death Valley National Park.

This is another photograph that I’ve been thinking about for a while, and one that I was virtually certain would be in black and white when I shot it. I’ve looked down into Trail Canyon quite a few times and tried to “see” a photograph that would somehow consist entirely of the overlapping ridges and layers of stratified rock, tilted at crazy and seemingly opposing angles. My previous photographs of this location had been made late in the day – when the light is beautiful in many directions from this overlook, but when the canyon itself is often shrouded in early shade.

I made this photograph in the morning. It was my first time at this location high in the Panamints at dawn instead of at sunset. I arrived on a cold winter morning before dawn to find no other people there and no wind. (The latter is a bit unusual here, but was certainly welcome, seeing that I would be shooting with long focal length lenses.) The first subject to shoot was the pre-dawn light on clouds high above the landscape. Then my attention moved to the first light striking various higher points within my range of view, and then followed the light as it worked its way down to lower elevations. After that I turned my attention more to guts of this canyon, but was not getting quite what I wanted at first – until the sun rose high enough to peak over ridges and begin to highlight the inner folds of the canyon as seen in this photograph. I made several different compositions, but in the end decided on this one that eliminates any extraneous elements outside of the canyon itself.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Aspen Grove, Spring

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Aspen Grove, Spring - Morning light filters through an eastern Sierra aspen grove on a spring morning.
Morning light filters through an eastern Sierra aspen grove on a spring morning.

Aspen Grove, Spring. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. June 7, 2009. © Copyright 2009 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light filters through an eastern Sierra aspen grove on a spring morning.

I often photograph the eastern Sierra aspens when they change colors in the fall, but these groves are appealing in every season – whether bare branches in snow, with green leaves quaking in the summer breezes, turning gold in fall, or with new leaves emerging in late spring.

I photographed these on one of those late-spring days. I had been up much earlier to photograph another subject elsewhere, and then returned to my camp site a bit later in the morning. This is a camp that I often use when photographing in the area east of Yosemite, so I know its surroundings quite well. The area is full of aspen trees, an there are a few small groves along a nearby section of the road that I often walk to. On this morning I stopped on my way back from that other place, just pulling over to the side of the road to shoot as the morning sun light was just arriving at this grove as the sun rose above the surrounding peaks.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.