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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Desert Star Flowers

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Desert Star Flowers
“Desert Star Flowers” — Tiny desert star (monoptilon bellioides) flowers, Death Valley.

When we think of a Death Valley “Superbloom” (the periodic eruption of astonishing numbers of wildflowers in wet years) most of us visualize gravel fans, hillsides, and washes full of impressive masses of wildflower color. In fact, that vision is not far off track. (I have posted and will post photographs of such things.) But you will see a fascinating world of smaller and more subtle flowers underfoot if you stop and look down.

I admit that I did not originally “look down” that much, but I learned from my wife, Patricia Emerson Mitchell, to stop and see these small treasures. The flowers in this photograph are desert (or Mojave) stars. The plants are so small that it is easy to miss them, and the flowers hug close to the ground. We found these while stopping for big fields of desert gold and sand verbena, and once we saw a few of the desert stars we realized that they were everywhere.

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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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Lake Manly, Mountains, and Sky

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Lake Manly, Mountains, and Sky
“Lake Manly, Mountains, and Sky” — Desert mountains reflected in Lake Manly under morning sky.

I am always looking for simple, minimalist forms in the desert landscape. The lack of vegetation presents the landscape unadorned, and the shapes of the rugged features can acquire an abstract quality. Here the mirrored forms of the Black Mountains form a wedge shape that cuts into a blue landscape of sky and its reflection in Lake Manly.

Water in Lake Manly presents even more possibilities along these lines. In more typical conditions this photograph would be impossible. Instead of filling the frame with the sky and its reflection, the lower third would be a very dry salt flat — interesting, for sure, but entirely different than the water-reflected mirror image of the mountains and 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.

Commentary, Ideas, Morning Musings, Thinking Aloud

What We Cannot Control

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Ross's Geese in Flight
“Ross’s Geese in Flight” — Ross’s geese descend toward a wetland pond.

(I haven’t shared a Morning Musings post in months, so it seems like this one is overdue!)

Sharing this photograph got me thinking again about how many aspects of photography are usually beyond our control. Consider all of the things that come together in this photograph:

  • I was at a location with an area of perhaps 4 or 5 square miles, and at this place there are many locations from which I could photograph. It just so happened that I was at the right spot when a flock of geese lifted off and then returned.
  • The light filled shadows and didn’t overpower white highlights because there was a bit of thin overcast.
  • I was upwind of the birds so their landing pattern brought them down facing my direction.
  • The three sharply focused foreground birds aligned with a group of six birds a bit farther away and beyond the plane of focus.
  • Each bird’s head is visible, with none blocked by other birds.
  • A lighter area of sky is centered beyond the birds, making them a bit more distinct, and this is roughly encircled by darker sky, focusing attention on the birds.
  • Looking more closely at the position of the birds, there is a mirrored pair at upper left. Two distant birds perfectly frame the single bird at lower eft. A pair of in-focus birds leads the group toward the lower ridge edge of the frame… with a pair of more distant birds right above them.

I could keep going, but you get the point.

In almost all photographs (aside from some fully constructed images perhaps) there are elements and conditions that are not under the direct control of the photographer: the weather, who walks by on a city street, wind, the time of day we when we show up, the mood of our subject, which way we happened to look, the season, whether something else we saw delayed our arrival, something we read or an idea mentioned by a friend, how he subject may or may not remind us of something we’ve seen before, how patient or impatient we feel, whether or not we notice something that was not what we came for. Sometimes an error produces a new idea that we had not thought of.

Again, I could keep going.

None of this is to say that we have no control over the nature of our photographs. Among many possible subjects, we pick some and ignore others. Given time we put more or less thought into elements of composition. We try to choose the times and places we think are most conducive to success. We bring equipment suitable to the opportunities and/or we adapt when the gear isn’t quite ideal. We bring our past experience with light and color and texture and composition… and with the subjects themselves.

Indeed, this list isn’t complete either.

Somewhere I recall reading that one difference (though not the only one) between painting and photographing is that, generally, every mark on the canvas was put there intentionally by the painter. In a sense, the parinter “knows” every detail. Photographers often discover things in their images that they had not even fully noticed, if at all, when they made the exposure.

There’s an old saying that we don’t take photographs, but rather we make photographs. This acknowledges the intentional choices and decisions that the photographer makes between the moment of seeing and ultimate act of printing. But if we are honest, unlike painters, we don’t literally make everything in a photograph. In fact we do take as a starting point what we are given, to a greater or lesser extent.

That taking is generally not random, and I don’t mean to minimize the role of intent in photography. If it were purely about taking, then all photographs and all photographers would be equal, and that is clearly not the case. Each photographer puts his or her own stamp on their taking. It is partly a matter of what we notice, but also of how we see. Two photographers who set up next to one another rarely produce the same photograph because each sees something different in what is in front of them, each is attentive to different details in the subject, one might be drawn to texture and another to color or form, each imagines a different final image.

It is important to know how to control and shape as many aspects of photograph-making as possible. Preparation and practice and experience are obviously important. But in the end, to a greater or lesser extent, as photographers we always work with what we are given or what we find, and it is largely about what we do with those things that we can’t control.

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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: Birds, Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Dawn Geese, Sierra Silhouette

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Dawn Geese, Sierra Silhouette
“Dawn Geese, Sierra Silhouette” — Migratory geese fill the Central VAlley dawn sky above the silhouette of the Sierra Nevada.

Surprisingly, for those of us who love winter, spring can evoke some of the same bittersweet feelings that autumn evokes. The season of interesting weather, dramatic skies, and migratory birds is passing. With that in mind I made one more visit to the Central Valley to see if the birds had departed. Some had — I saw no sandhill cranes at all. But I was treated to a stupendous dawn fly-out of geese.

I half expected that snow geese and Ross’s geese would have left already. In the past they were there at the beginning of the month but gone before the Ides of March. I arrived before sunrise and saw no geese at all, but a few minutes later I heard a few in the distance. I headed that way, and soon tremendous fly-outs began all over the surrounding wetlands. Thousands of geese took off into the colorful cloudy sky above the distant Sierra Nevada during the next half hour. And then they were gone.

Leave a comment or question using the form. (Click the title to see the full article and to comment if you are viewing it on the home page.)

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.