A small flock of six Ross’s geese in flight against the sky in golden hour light, San Joaquin Valley, California
Late on this January afternoon – more like early evening perhaps – we were staking out a small flock of Ross’s geese that had parked themselves in a nearby pond. There were not that many of them – nothing like the flocks of many thousands that we have watched on some other evenings, when they gradually depart in small groups over a long period of time, or the very large group we saw earlier this year that mostly just moved around in a pasture near where we were shooting. Each time a small sub group departed on this evening, they created a noticeable decline in the number of birds left behind.
However, they somewhat compensated for their small numbers by means of their more “photographable” departure path, at least in some cases. Rather than flying away from us, some instead flew from left to right in front of our position and some of them even did a few laps overhead before actually leaving. This group of six was among those most obliging geese. They had departed to the right, looped back around to the left, and then flew across in front of us a second time, all the while taking a fairly low flight path. As this group passed by I watched carefully though the viewfinder to try to catch them in an instant when none of them obscured the others in the flock, and I caught such a moment here with the added bonus of a bit of slightly golden late afternoon light.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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
Huge winter surf breaks over rocky coastal islands along California’ Big Sur Coastline.
In mid-January waves of stupendous size came ashore along the California coastline, as they do at times every winter. The surf was caused by storms, but not storms that were at all visible here in California, where this was an unusually warm and sunny weekend, with clear skies and temperatures (in January!) in the low seventy degree range. As I understand it, the source of the large waves was a big Pacific storm far to the north, in the region of the Aleutian Islands, which was sending huge swells thousands of miles toward our coastline.
The news reports were making a big deal of so-called “sneaker waves” – huge waves that seemingly appear unexpectedly and sometimes wash over areas that might seem safe. Sometimes the reports overdo this sort of thing, but the warnings are justified, and this was especially the case during this occurrence. We were even surprised a bit ourselves. When we finally made it to this area along the Big Sur coast that is open to the ocean, we expected to see huge surf, but when we pulled over and looked it didn’t seem like anything all that extraordinary was happening. Yes, there were waves, but nothing that seemed out of the ordinary. However, as we grabbed gear and tripods and walked to an overlook on a bluff above the water a series of truly huge waves began to come ashore. It turns out that this pattern alternates periods of smaller waves with periodic intervals of much larger waves, and we certainly saw abundant evidence as gigantic waves completely overwhelmed these rocky offshore islands before continuing on to hit the shoreline and wash far up the beaches.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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
I made this in the last moments of an early March visit to the California Central Valley to photograph migratory birds. (As I write this in late March, I’m pretty certain that this was the final “goose chase” of this winter season.) I had come across a very large flock of snow geese in a field alongside a road south of Sacramento near the end of the day – somewhat to my surprise – so I pulled over on the barely adequate shoulder of the road and photographed over a fence and some roadside weeds as the birds began to fly off in small groups.
This little episode illustrates, for me, some of the unpredictability and luck involved in photographing such birds. I don’t mean to diminish the importance of having appropriate equipment and knowing how to use it, nor of having some idea of where to find the birds. But there is a lot about this that is not in the photographer’s control. I had started the day many miles south of here before dawn at a very different wildlife site. My plans were a bit vague beyond starting there, and when the opportunities seemed a bit less than idea after the morning shoot, I decided that I would use the “blah light” midday hours to travel up the valley a good distance to another area where I had not photographed since last season. (This added bit of driving also allowed me to investigate a few highways and side roads that I had been wanting to check out.) After a long drive of nearly two hours I arrived at this location in the Sacramento area and found… not at all what I had hoped for. I was hoping for more large flocks of birds, preferably geese and/or cranes, but at the first place I stopped it seemed that formerly flooded fields had now been drained and tilled. I moved to another area, but still couldn’t see what I had in mind to shoot. I drove around a bit trying to get the lay of the land and discover if perhaps the birds were somewhere other than where I expected to find them, but aside from a few small groups I didn’t find much. I took a nap. I started the usual contemplation about how not every shoot is successful and reminded myself that it was a good day even if nothing turned up here. As sunset approached I decided to make one last loop around the area, stopping to briefly photograph a few Canadian geese. As I watched the, I caught a glimpse of the tell-tale white birds off to the north and since I wasn’t finding anything all the compelling where I was I drove off in that direction. I soon was surprised to find a field filled with many thousands of geese – and a bit more surprised to find that they (or at least many of them) were snow geese rather than the Ross’s geese I often photograph. I stood along the road, separated from them by a low fence and tall weeds and watched. Before long small groups began to take of and fly low angle paths across the field toward the setting sun. The light was beautiful but often they were in front of farmland buildings, trees, and wires. I kept shooting and occasionally a group would rise high enough and quickly enough to appear against early evening sky. One of the important factors, or at least it seems to me, is to capture the group when the birds are in a pleasing and interesting configuration. Too often they overlap, or may not have wings raised or lowered, or there distances may vary enough to create focus problems – so it is no surprise that a good percentage of the shots aren’t keepers. (I have a sense of when this is more likely to work, but only a sense.) But this group managed to cooperate nicely, not only flying against background of clear sky, heading into the golden hour sunset light, but also managing to maintain enough separation that none of them overlap at all.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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
A lone tree on pasture land of a foggy late-winter morning with pre-dawn clouds, San Joaquin Valley
Back near the beginning of March in this year that seems to have brought an early end to winter I headed out to the Central Valley to do what was likely my last migratory bird photography of the season. When I left the San Francisco Bay Area well before dawn for the trip out to the valley the skies were clear, and I was just a bit disappointed in that I prefer at least a bit of fog for this subject. The fog gods must have heard me, since as I neared my first location in a low-lying and often wet area of the valley, fog began to collect just before sunrise. It was that wonderful sort of fog that is almost opaque, but which moves around and changes enough that at least some of the time nearby subjects are visible and it is possible to see early morning clouds in the sky above.
Although my plan was to photograph birds, at first I didn’t see the birds I was most interested in (sandhill cranes and Ross’s geese), so I kept moving and eventually ended up in this flat pasture area where a few isolated trees stood along on newly green ground, with groves of trees beyond and the soft shapes of early morning clouds overhead. This soft light is a special feature of this area in the cool, damp season, and it characterizes my experience with this place. Before long the fog began to thin, the sun came out, and I found birds to photograph.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
