Tag Archives: flock

Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Geese in Motion

January 12, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of geese takes flight in front of a winter evening sky, San Joaquin Valley, California

This is another bird photograph that intentionally flirts with the limits long shutter speed in order to allow motion blur to affect the image. This is perhaps a bit less “abstract” than the previous one I shared in that you can still see reasonably well-defined shapes of some birds in this photograph.

On a winter evening in California’s Central Valley I intentionally lowered the shutter speed to a setting much slower than normally used for handheld shots with a long lens. I tracked the birds as they lifted off during the evening “fly out” event, attempting to shoot during moments when the flock assembled itself into some sort of interesting configuration and, if possible was seen against something interesting in the sky beyond – dusk colors, other birds, etc. The faint blurs in the lower portion of the image are more distant flock. Although it almost doesn’t matter in a photograph like this one, the birds are Ross’s geese. One thing that appeals to me in this photograph is that while the birds are little more than vaporous smudges in some places, in other you can almost make out actual details for their shapes.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Ross’s Geese, Evening Fly-Out

January 9, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Ross’s geese take flight in sunset light above California’s Central Valley

So much of this sort of photography is almost entirely not under the control of the photographer. For example, in this shot it just happened that the foreground group of Ross’s geese lifted off from the nearby pond as the further groups that had left earlier lined up beyond them. The lovely formation of the front group was entirely determined, as far as I can tell, by the geese and not by me! Of all the sky conditions that I had encountered on this day, it was fortuitous that the flock lifted off in the direction of this color gradient and then rose to the right height to be in front of it as they ascended. And it was especially gracious of them to lift off as the last golden hour sun hit them from the west, and on a side where I could see it.

So what does the photographer get to take credit for in cases like these? There are, of course, choices about when and where to park oneself to increase the odds that something interesting will happen in front of the lens. And there is the matter of instincts of various sorts, without which it would be very difficult (or should I say, even more unlikely) to have the camera pointed the right direction at the right time and to click the shutter button at an opportune moment. Exposures must be reasonably close to right, which is a trickier thing than some think. And then there is some combination of recognizing luck when it comes your way, intuitively recognizing and tracking what is happening, and being able to follow the birds and instantly recognize when an interesting visual pattern occurs.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Blue Geese, Red Sky

December 25, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Ross’s geese, blue in the fading light of the overhead evening sky, fly against the reds of a wild Central Valley sunset

Back in early December, 2012 we were out photographing migratory birds in California’s Central Valley, on a day that began with extremely thick tule fog, gradually transitioned to hazy sunshine, then was interrupted by the atmospheric muck of an incoming weather system, and ended with a surprising and astonishing sunset and post-sunset display of color. It seems that there must have been a gap between the clouds and the horizon somewhere far to our west, and as the sun dropped to the horizon the late and very red light shone up into the clouds, turning them blood-red (and, at times, pink and purple and orange and more.)

Right before this we had been parked near a very large flock of geese that were mostly grounded, but which would occasionally take off en masse and circle for a bit before settling back in, often quite close to where they started. I had been tracking and photographing them in the somewhat gloomy light, and when the brilliantly colorful sky arrived I was ready to try to take advantage of it. This created a challenge though, that is probably familiar to anyone who has photographed such a sky. It is very bright and (important to those shooting digital systems) very red – which means that it can be necessary to underexpose a bit to avoid seeing very strange things happen to the red channel in the image file. In addition, since I was shooting straight into this brilliant light here, the geese were backlit. So, in post I was faced with a couple of contradictory issues – I had to control the brightness of the sky while trying to regain a bit of detail on the bodies of the backlit and rather dark birds! About the “blue geese, red sky” title… Because the dimmer light falling on the portions of the geese facing me was largely diffused light from a non-colorful (e.g. – blue) part of the sky, their white feathers registered very much as blue.

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

Ross’s Geese, Tree and Marsh

December 20, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A thick flock of Ross’s geese flies above a marsh and a solitary tree in California’s Central Valley

After a full morning (and then some!) of photographing mostly Ross’s geese at a Central Valley wildlife refuge, we took a short break for a mid-afternoon lunch and then hurried back to the refuge by about 3:30 for evening photography. One of the last things we did before taking this break was to briefly assemble at the main overlook near the entrance to the refuge, where we were a bit surprised to see lots of geese settling in on one of the nearby ponds, and from which we could look back and see still more geese at the edges of the pasture where we had been photographing them.

As is often the case on a tule fog day like this one in the Central Valley, while the fog did “clear,” the general haziness never did completely go away. Instead the atmosphere remained mildly opaque, and it glowed in the late afternoon sunlight. Looking west, it was almost hard to see into this glow, but that is the direction we looked to see the pond and beyond it some isolated trees and the wetlands disappearing into the distance. Behind us, back on that pasture, the flock suddenly lifted off all at once and the birds made a large loop or two around us. I could see that they were likely to pass by the far edge of this pond and by the silhouetted tree, so I did a “landscape on the fly,” shooting handheld with a 100-400mm zoom as the birds came into the composition that I quickly found.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: flock

Geese in Motion

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Ross’s Geese, Evening Fly-Out

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Blue Geese, Red Sky

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Ross’s Geese, Tree and Marsh

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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.