Tag Archives: winter

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Fog, Tree, And Pond

February 1, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

I love fog, and I especially love the thick and mysterious tule fog of California’s Central Valley — comprised of the northern Sacramento Valley and the southern San Joaquin Valley, and draining to the Pacific Ocean via San Francisco Bay. This fog is mostly a winter thing, when the moisture rises from the ground, farmland, and ponds as the temperature drops at night. It often reaches its peak in the early morning, just after dawn. (It also creates some very challenging driving conditions — so bad that lots of people simply try to avoid them.)

If you stop and get out of your car, the world of tule fog is quiet and mysterious and still. Your universe closes down to a radius of perhaps a couple hundred feet or less, and you can sense as much about your surroundings by sound as you can by vision — you might hear but not see a flock of crane passing overhead. Surprising to some who are new to these conditions, while the tule fog is incredibly dense, it is often astonishingly shallow. On occasion I have seen conditions so bad that it was almost impossible to drive… but I could look up and see clouds in the sky overhead. The tops of trees and utility poles might poke out of the top of the fog layer. This, of course, can produce some very special light, since this thick fog may also be intensely illuminated by that overhead sky and sun, to the point that at times it can almost hurt to look into the brightness. Those were not the conditions when I made this photograph, but the astonishing blue color (which I actually had to tone down a bit in post) is the result of the glowing fog picking up the color of the blue morning sky.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Wildlife

The Cranes Return

January 31, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

I understand that the “Super Blue Blood Moon” or something similar occurred early this morning. I missed it. (Well, not quite. I did look out my window before sunrise, and I saw a bit of the eclipse over my neighbor’s house.) However, almost exactly 12 hours earlier I was in a position to look at and photograph that very same moon as it rose over the Sierra Nevada and climbed into the sky above California. It was a beautiful, quiet, peaceful moment at the end of a long day photographing birds.

I chose this particular day to visit the wetlands for a couple of reasons. First, I knew there would be ground fog in the morning and that fog often leaves behind a soft and hazy atmosphere. Second, I knew that the moon would rise from behind the Sierra about a half hour before actual sunset, putting it at an interesting elevation above the horizon at sunset and during the blue hour, that period when the moon seems bright but the ambient light is still sufficient to illuminate the landscape. I began watching for the rising moon at the appointed time, but it did not immediately appear, because it still had to clear the Sierra and because the atmosphere above the valley was so thick with haze. Perhaps twenty minutes later it began to emerge from the haze, and I quickly moved to a spot I had previously considered, where some trees break up the otherwise flat landscape here where a gravel road winds among them. I hoped that the cranes might appear — they often do during the moments shortly after sunset — and hoped even more that they might pass through the scene. Sometimes one does get lucky, and a long string of the birds flew just above the moon as the sky turned pink and deeper blue.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Wetlands Evening

January 26, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Trees, plants, and a few birds under a bank of clouds above wetlands

The process of bird-photography, at least as I know it, is perhaps not quite what people who don’t photograph this subject might imagine. The actual practice and experience varies from photographer to photographer and, no doubt, from place to place. However, I’d be willing to bet that many people would be surprised at how much not-photographing goes on! There are amazing moments when we come upon a special scene, when a huge flock of geese lifts off, when we get close to a raptor, when the light and sky do something astonishing. Then there are all the other moments, and they form the majority of the experience. The birds are somewhere else. They are just a bit too far away. The light goes flat. It rains. And so on.

The fact of the matter is that in order to photograph those periodic extraordinary moments, you have to spend a lot of time just being there. If really special stuff happens, say 1% of the time, you’ll increase your odds of experiencing it if your base is 100 hours rather and one. Of course, that also means that you’ll increase the number of slow hours when not much happens. Be ready. Bring a book. Take a nap. Wander a bit. And sometimes take a look at other subjects, like the still and quiet grasses growing in a shallow pond beneath winter skies, even though there aren’t a whole lot of birds there.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Central Park, Winter

January 25, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Bare trees and an empty plaza on a cold winter day in Central Park

It was an utterly frigid day in New York City when I made this photograph. This Californian is not really used to such weather, but we gave it a good try, heading out each day on long walks that sometimes lasted many hour despite temperatures around and sometimes lower than 20 degrees. (Some of you are used to that, but a “cold” midday temperature here in near-the-coast Northern California would be in the upper-forties.) Our morning began with an aborted attempt to visit the Guggenheim Museum — we made it there, got in line, stood there gradually getting colder and colder, finally figured out that the line wasn’t actually moving, gave up, and found a warm and cozy place to go eat and drink.

Afterwards we headed out on foot once again, eventually ending up back at Central Park. I’ve been there at different times of the year. In summer there are often many thousands of people in the park — walking, cycling, skating, sitting around, eating, lounging on lawns, and more. There are expansive green lawns and big, leafy trees. In winter those lawns die and the trees lose their leaves. There are people in the park, but only a tiny fraction of the number seen in summer, and most seem to be on their way somewhere else — probably somewhere else warm. But I like the park this time of year. The gray solitude of the place appeals, and the leafless trees permit more of the surrounding urban world to be seen. This little plaza, nearly empty, was along the east side of the park as we gradually worked our way to the lower end of the park.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: winter

Fog, Tree, And Pond

The Cranes Return

Central Park, Winter

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