Tag Archives: day

Morning After

Morning After
Sad pumpkin, the day after Halloween.

Morning After. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sad pumpkin, the day after Halloween.

And you thought we’d get through this season without me sharing a pumpkin picture. No such luck! A couple of weeks ago someone suggested making photographs of orange things. Pumpkins seemed kind of too obvious, but in the end I could not entirely resist. Mostly I kept my eyes open for anything that was orange — signs, paint, vehicles, lights — but somehow these gourds kept jumping into the frame. (If you have never tried it, going out and constraining your photography to a color or a shape or something similar is a great exercise.) One thing I learned from the process is that “orange” is much more nebulous concept than I had thought — the “edges” of this color bleed over into red, yellow, and brown.

This sad fellow was sitting at the edge of a driveway in a pile of leaves on the morning after Halloween. The expression seemed like the ultimate “meh” look to me. Finally, in case you are wondering… yes, there is still one more pumpkin photograph to come. I know you are thrilled!


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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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New Year’s Day Sky

New Year's Day Sky
A New Year’s Day California sky

New Year’s Day Sky. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A New Year’s Day California sky.

Every New Year’s Day for the past few years I have made it a goal to be out in the natural world when the first sun of the new year rises. While this does tend to interfere with New Year’s Eve revelry — hard to stay up until midnight when you have to wake up at 3:30 am — it has produced some pretty special New Year’s Days, especially since some friends have taken to joining us.

We were “out there” again this year, and the day did not disappoint. As I like to say, “We great the actual dawn of the new year” together — sharing photography, wonder, snacks, a meal, a morning champagne toast, and more. Late in the day this year I looked toward the sky and saw some lovely clouds in the south, so I tilted my camera up and made this photograph.


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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.


All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Twilight Flight

Twilight Flight
A rush of (mostly) geese at the end of the day

Twilight Flight. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A rushing blur of birds at the end of the day

First, I do know how to make sharp photographs of birds, too… ;-)

There are many things I can’t really explain about winter bird populations. But as I have watched them (and listened to their remarkable sound) from Washington to California, I am starting to at recognize a few more patterns. At times some birds become increasingly active, and at the end of the day, as light fades, there may be opportunities to depict the motions of individual birds and flocks in a different way — rather than trying to stop motion I just go with longer shutter speeds, pan with groups as they fly by, and let the motion blur take over. Frankly, in many ways I think that this confusing blur may better evoke the wild actions of these evening flocks.


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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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Dawn, New Year’s Day 2016

Dawn, New Year's Day 2016
Geese in flight above a rural San Joaquin Valley road at dawn, New Year’s Day 2016

Dawn, New Year’s Day 2016. San Joaquin Valley, California. January 1, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Geese in flight above a rural San Joaquin Valley road at dawn, New Year’s Day 2016

A few years back a group of friends decided to meet at dawn on New Year’s Day. We arrived at a place out in the San Joaquin Valley that is mostly populated by migratory birds this time of year, and we greeted the first sunrise of the new year with friends — a few human friends and a few tens of thousands of geese and other birds. We repeated the event the following year, and it has now become a traditions. Today we can’t think of a better way to start a new year, and once again we assembled there on New Year’s Day 2016.

We arrived to find the place strangely quiet. Typically we expect to hear thousands of birds all around us, but we figured out that they had moved off to nearby ponds. A few of us headed that way and eventually others followed, and we found a decent group of geese settled in on the shallow water. As the sun rose thousands more geese began to fly in, and before long the ponds were filled with them. Inevitably, something causes them to suddenly take to the air and before long that is exactly what happened. The flock noisily took flight, made a few loops over the pond, and then headed north over the rural roadway, silhouetted against sunrise sky.


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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.