Fennel, Distant Birds, Morning. Central Valley, California. January 18, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early morning light on a row of fennel plants with migratory birds passing in the distance, Central Valley, California.

If you don’t look closely, fennel is a pretty nondescript plant, especially during the dry season when it more or less goes dormant and consists mostly of dry twigs and branches and a few dry seeds. I never paid much attention to it at all when I was younger, despite spending a lot of time in the California outdoors, where the plant is very common. I think the first time that I actually noticed it was some years ago when I was surprised to smell the familiar fragrance of anise (as in licorice) while hiking or running along a local trail. I stopped and noticed the familiar seeds that I had used in cooking, picked a few, crushed them, and noticed that powerful smell. (There is a group of plants found in outdoor California that often cause me to stop and engage in this ritual of picking a leaf or seed, crushing it, and enjoying the scent: fennel, bay/laurel, sage…)

True to form, I wasn’t really paying much attention to these plants growing along the boundary between a Central Valley road and a flooded field where I had stopped to make photographs of migratory birds in late January. It may actually be the case that I only really “saw” them when my camera’s AF system “incorrectly” locked focus on the plants instead of more distant subjects! But this shot was not an accident. At this point I had noticed the plants and they became the subject, with relief from cross light from the rising sun and against the background of hazy early morning sky.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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.