Dogwood Blossoms, Forest. Yosemite Valley, California. May 7, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A dogwood tree blooms in the forest of Yosemite Valley.
I have a feeling that I need to try a largish print of this one – there is so much detail in the scene that it is almost hard to make sense out of it in a small jpg. In the late afternoon I had wandered along the north edge of the Valley until I reached a point a bit east of the Ahwahnee Hotel. Having finished in this area, I headed around the hotel grounds and toward the Merced River and the former campground areas that were closed after the epic floods of a decade or so ago. This area is in some spots largely overgrown by thick, low plants and in some places I know that there are some good specimens of dogwood.
Although it was early in this year’s dogwood bloom cycle, I found a couple of very good trees in this area, and these two were almost completely in bloom. The forest here is quite dark and thick, and especially during the early evening time when I arrived this made the density of the vegetation seem even more impressive. The idea here was to fill the frame with flower-laden branches with the strong vertical lines of the forest trees behind, but also with detail everywhere in the frame.
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Thanks, Edward. We were both there on the 7th, and that day it seemed like the dogwood blossoms were just getting started in earnest. My first clue was a particular tree along the road to Mariposa just below the intersection with Big Oak Flat Road – it was completely covered in blooms. Then I had some time to wander about in an area not far from Ahwahnee Meadow, where I found several really fine specimens.
I’ve been tied up with other responsibilities since then, but I’m betting that the the late bloom in the Valley has reached and probably now passed its peak, but that the higher elevations trees should now be coming into their own very quickly as the snow melts out up higher.
Dan
Nice new image Dan! It’s been a pretty good year for dogwoods up in Yosemite, a bit late but good. I was in Yosemite on May 7th and May 15th teaching workshops and the difference in the number of blooms were really staggering. Things were really popping last weekend, rain, snow and all. Thanks for sharing the image.