Tag Archives: wild

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Burned Forest, Twisting Branches

March 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Bare, twisted branches in burned forest, Yosemite National Park

For a number of years, Yosemite National Park has allowed naturally set fires to more or less burn themselves out under supervision, and management fires are set regularly in areas including Yosemite Valley. For many of us there is a natural negative response to this, at least initially, since we were brought up on a stead Smoky Bear diet of “fire is bad!” It turns out that not all fires are bad. In fact, the healthy forests depend on fire – to clear out underbrush and reduce the fuel load and even to prompt the renewal of plant life. Ironically, there is some thought that one reason for the very big and very destructive fires that have occurred more recently is that fires have been suppressed for so long that too much fuel has built up in the forest, allowing fires that might otherwise be “healthy” to become firestorms that destroy even mature trees.

The evidence of fire is found in many areas of the park, including Yosemite Valley. If you visit late in the season you might find a managed fire underway, closing off sections of the forest and spreading smoke. (While I worry about the health effects of the smoke, I have learned to use it photographically but finding ways to use the haze in my images.) For some time I have worked to find ways to photograph the burned areas. They can have a kind of stark beauty in the right light and when looked at in just the right ways. I had stopped in a more traditional meadow, full of dormant winter grasses and leafless winter trees, when I looked behind myself to see on of the managed burn areas, and these curving and twisting bare limbs against a background of scorched trunks.

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

White-Faced Ibis

March 4, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

White-Faced Ibis feeding in San Joaquin Valley wetlands

As I have pointed out in the past, I’m no bird expert – but I do like to photograph them! For some reason the white-faced ibis has intrigued me for some time. The first time I photographed them it was an accident. I was photographing birds flying overhead on one winter morning when the sky was filled with birds – so many that I mostly just photographed without paying too much attention to the specifics of what I was seeing. Sometime later when I got home and looked at the files I saw that one large group of birds flying in a long row, silhouetted against the brighter sky, had the interesting curved bills that characterize the ibises.

More recently I have learned to look for them, and in some of the places I photograph I now know where to find them, down to the acre in a few cases. In mid-February I went to one of these locations and ended up at a spot where I have seen many of them in the past, often feeding in groups. But this time I saw exactly two. One was behind some reeds and did not make a good photographic subject, but this one was feeding alongside a gravel road right at the edge of the water. I stopped my car – which often serves as an effective blind – and opened a window and waited (somewhat) patiently as the bird worked its way along in the shallow water. The trick is to think of this almost as a portrait – I watch for the bird to turn into the best light, to stand in an interesting position, to face the camera, and to be in a spot that avoids distracting or interfering objects. The egret tends to spend a lot of its time with its beak deep in the water as it looks for food – not a very attractive photographic pose! But it periodically lifts the beak and every so often it briefly stands up straight as seen here. The plumage of this bird is very interesting. It can look just plain dull and almost black in some light. But if it turns its body toward the sun, the feathers become iridescent and have tints of green and red.

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

Sunset Light, Big Sur

February 10, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Winter sunset light on the rugged Big Sur coastline

On the final day of January we took a long drive down and then back up the Pacific Coast Highway between the Monterey Peninsula and Piedras Blancas, where we knew we could see and photograph the elephant seals that gather here on the coast every winter. We took our time on the southward drive, taking nearly nine hours to reach our southern destination – and stopping frequently along the way to make photographs. (OK, for coffee and meals, too…) After photographing the elephant seals in the late afternoon, it was time to start our return trip.

There is so much to see along this coast that it is unusual to be left wondering what to photograph, so the general – and somewhat vague – plan was to take stock of where we found ourselves during the hour or so before sunset and to then find a suitable golden hour and dusk subject to photograph. Perhaps 45 or 50 minutes before sunset we came to an overlook where we had photographed much earlier in the day and decided that this would be the place. Here the coastline arcs south, with rugged mountains dropping right down to the shoreline with its sea stacks, rocky prominences, and hidden beaches. Our overlook was high enough to provide an expansive view of this scene, and it didn’t hurt that a couple of large rocky islands, one with a natural arch, were located right below. You never know how a sunset and evening will turn out in photographic terms and you must more or less take what you get. On the plus side, there were thin, high clouds to the west that wrapped around to the south, and these clouds can produce a lot of color if lit from below right at sunset and shortly after. There was also some haze to the west to soften the light. On the other hand, there also appeared to be a somewhat thicker band of clouds and for right near the horizon, and this can “turn the lights out” at just the wrong moment. I made this photograph as the golden hour light began to intensely color the shoreline. I quickly made a series of photographs in landscape and portrait orientation, moving a bit in between to change the juxtaposition of elements a bit. At one point I looked away for a moment… and when I looked back the color had almost gone as the sun passed behind those thicker clouds. Yes, it happens that quickly and imperceptibly sometimes.

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

Beach and Bluffs, Evening

August 5, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening light and fog along the Pacific coast north of Santa Cruz, California

On day two of my “return to California photography” we drove across the coastal mountains to the Pacific Coast Highway north of Santa Cruz, California looking for some combination of evening golden hour (or even blue hour, but that’s a different photograph) light, incoming coastal fog, beach, bluffs, and ocean. This area is, of course, pretty familiar to me at this point, so we hit a few of my favorites: a small beach on a side road where wind surfers congregate, a place where a creek comes down to the ocean from the coastal hills, a particular bluff where I know that gulls and pelicans will often fly past very close, another beach where the pelicans often stop to rest, and more.

This beach is at one of the low spots along this highway, which often alternates between climbing to the tops of the bluffs and descending to beaches at major river and creek valleys. On previous visits I have caught a glimpse of this particular angle of view, which only appears momentarily along a section of the road with no real turnouts. I have stopped before, admired the line of bluffs extending north along the coast, but mostly not managed to make a photograph that I like. So as we passed this spot again I looked again… and liked what I saw – soft, warm golden hour light gently lighting the atmosphere thick with moisture from the incoming fog and nicely shaped waves running up on the beach as those bluffs faded into the distant mist.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: wild

Burned Forest, Twisting Branches

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White-Faced Ibis

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Sunset Light, Big Sur

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Beach and Bluffs, Evening

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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.