Tag Archives: reflection

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

Wetlands Tree, Fog

February 19, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A tree and brush reflected in still water of a fog-shrouded wetland pond

These are my favorite days in California’ Great Central Valley, the winter days when the tule fog forms and covers the landscape, making almost everything seem mysterious. On days when most sane people avoid driving in this fog, I head this direction hoping I’ll find it. In certain areas, even when it is clear almost everywhere else, the fog can form above the winter wetlands and quickly drop visibility to near zero. (One of the strangest but characteristic experiences is driving slowly through pre-dawn darkness and fog so thick that you can barely see more than feet in front of you, yet being able to look straight up through the shallow fog layer to see the moon and stars overhead.)

It was tremendously foggy on the February morning. Arriving at this refuge we could hear thousands of geese and cranes off in the invisible distance in almost all directions, but we could not see a single bird. Eventually, on a perimeter road circling the wetlands, I came across this spot were a few trees stand in the shallow, still water. The fog hides distant elements of the landscape or at least mutes them, giving prominence to closer features that might otherwise be lost in background detail. The central tree, visually muted even though it is barely fifty feet from my camera position, curves above the reflecting water and its skeletal form stands out from the nearly invisible background plants and water that are almost invisible in the fog.

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

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

Subalpine Lake, Morning Reflections

February 4, 2016 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Morning light and reflections on the rocky shoreline of a subalpine Sierra Nevada lake

A wonderful thing about making photographs is that I get to travel backwards and forwards in time almost at will. Here it is in the middle of winter, and by looking back a few months in my archive I can go right back to a beautiful late summer week spent photographing around a Yosemite subalpine lake with a couple of friends. All of the sensory memories come right back: the stillness of the morning lake as the first sun worked its way through high clouds and haze, the memory of carrying my camera around the perimeter of that lake every morning as I looked slowly of subjects, the first colors of Sierra autumn.

We camped here for a full week, working intensively to photograph in and around one small area. If you haven’t done this you could be forgiven for wondering how in the world one could spend an entire week in area not much larger than a mile or two across. In fact, I still have those doubts at the start of any trip like this. All I can say is that, inevitably, the end of such a week comes too soon, I depart with many things left unphotographed, and I often return to these places again and find even more to see and photograph.

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Winter Wetlands, Morning

January 15, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Flooded Sacramento Valley wetlands in the early morning

While I tell myself that I go to places like this to photograph birds, the truth is that little spots like this one may be more my target. Imagine waking many hours before dawn, and against your instincts starting to move quickly and efficiently to arise, make breakfast, fix lunch, brew coffee, and load a car. Then drive many hours in the dark, radio playing, as the invisible landscape slides past and the world consists mostly of what I see in the headlight beams. Getting close to my destination the sky begins to glow a bit, but I’m still driving, in the world of a noisy car and freeway speeds.

Finally I leave the freeway and drive a relatively short distance to my Central Valley destination. My first stop is still all business — arriving, I park and change into cold weather clothing and set up camera and lenses and get back in the car. I start out on some gravel road around the area I’ve chosen to photograph, though the sun has yet to rise, and I’m focused on finding birds to photograph. A bit later I finally begin to slow down, and with the car windows rolled down in the cold morning air I stop and turn the motor off and sit next to a place like this one and everything is finally still.

Commentary, Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Photographers

Photographer, Wetlands

December 20, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Water reflects clouds above photographer David Hoffman as he works from a levee in San Joaquin Valley wetlands.

Passing through California’s Great Central Valley by car, you could be forgiven for thinking that there isn’t much there besides fast food, gas stations, freeway, and other stuff alongside the road. Get off the freeway, get out of the car, and slow down a bit, especially during the colder half of the year, and you may find a very different place. This little post is not the place to share the whole story, but for me the place is partly defined by its agricultural roots, partly by the sense that it is located between the coast ranges and the great Sierra Nevada, and partly by the sense I often get there of space and immense sky.

We had spent the morning photographing migratory birds and the somewhat hazy landscape. We broke for lunch in a nearby town and then returned for more photography in the mid afternoon. While we were at lunch the conditions changed — the light fog dissipated and high clouds from a Pacific weather front drifted across the sky. As we headed out toward a spot where we hoped to find birds for evening photography we paused along the levee and photographed the sky, its reflection in the wetlands pond, and the spare winter landscape. My friend and photographer David Hoffman is photographing the same pond from the far bank.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: reflection

Wetlands Tree, Fog

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Photographer, Wetlands

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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.