Category Archives: Photographs: Central California

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

Purple Larkspur Flowers

April 16, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Purple larkspur spring blossoms at Almaden Quicksilver County Park, California.

I think I’ll post another spring wildflower photograph before resuming the Death Valley posts – who knows, maybe I’ll post a few more first!

I’m a bit weak on flower identification. Although I can tell you when certain flowers will come up, tell you exactly where to look for them, and even recognize the plants before the flowers bloom… I cannot always remember the common names, much less the Latin names. With that said, I’m reasonably certain that these are Larkspur blooms.

This patch is on a particular hillside along a particular sunny turn in a trail in the small “wildflower valley” at Almaden Quicksilver Park that I mentioned in an earlier post. At this spot the trail descend though a somewhat open area that faces west and the plants are in a boundary between some much more shaded forest and a bit of open grass-covered terrain. In a small area here that is perhaps no more than 20 feet across, right above a small oak tree set in the edge of the trail, I can always find a small group of these flowers right near the beginning of April.

They are not easy to photograph. The flowers are not terribly large and tripod placement is very tough on the steep hill where they grow. To make this photograph I added an extension tube to a 24-105mm image-stabilized lens and got down on my knees. I was quite close – a matter of a few inches from the flowers. Depth of field is very small, so the trick is to find a good angle that both provides the right kind of background and which puts the main flower roughly parallel to the sensor, to find an interesting composition of the flowers, and then to move the camera slightly back and forth until the primary subject comes into focus. (The camera won’t auto-focus very will with this setup.) The very dark colors of this flower also add to the challenge!

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM (with extension tube) at 73mm
ISO 400, f/4, 1/160 second

keywords: purple, flower, bloom, petal, larkspur, wild, wildflower, spring, green, grass, bokeh, almaden, quicksilver, county, park, santa clara, san jose, california, usa, north america, nature, foliage, season, stock

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

White Globe Lily Flower and Grasses

April 15, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Chinese Lantern Flower and Grasses — White Globe Lily Flower and Grasses

A spring white globe lily flower blossoms among the seeds of new grass, Almaden Quicksilver County Park, California.

I’m posting this as a brief interlude in the steady stream of photographs from my late March visit to Death Valley. This photograph was obviously not made in Death Valley. (Yes, there are flowers there. No, not this one!)

Weather frustrated some of my photographic plans on the day that I made this photograph, so late in the day I decided to at least head out briefly and try to photograph some of the spring wildflowers that are blooming right now at one of my favorite local parks. There is a small valley not far from a trailhead at Almaden Quicksilver County Park that I know very well – I photograph there every spring when many, many wildflowers appear. For this little adventure I decided to go very light, taking only a camera body, one extension tube, and a 24-105mm zoom lens and planning to shoot hand held.

The sun was out when I left my home, but within five minutes it started raining! I was starting to think that photography just wasn’t going to be in the cards at all on this day, but I decided to keep driving anyway. The rain increased. The clouds above the hills where I was headed looked quite dark. But as I got closer I saw that this little shower was going to pass over and head to the east, and when I arrived there was broken sun.

I quickly walked to the small valley mentioned above, noticing the wonderfully green foliage in this area that is brown and dry during most of the year. As I started down the trail into the Valley I had a pretty good idea of what flowers to expect and where to look for them, since I know this spot very well. Thinking that it was still a bit early for these white globe lily flowers to be out, I looked for the plants instead, thinking that I’d be able to return later when the flowers were in bloom. But lower in the canyon I was surprised to find some of the flowers were already out and in bloom, including this specimen growing in a grassy area.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM (with extension tube) at 70mm
ISO 400, f/8, 1/100 second

keywords: chinese, lantern, flower, bud, blossom, bloom, plant, nature, grass, green, growth, new, leaf, san jose, santa clara, county, california, usa, north america, spring, white, almaden, quicksilver, park, stock

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Kelp, Weston Beach

February 26, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Black and white photograph of kelp tossed up by winter storm surf at Weston Beach, Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

I have already worked up a couple of color photographs from this day shooting the kelp washed up on the rocks of Weston Beach by big Pacific winter storms – but earlier this week I was in a black and white frame of mind (it was Ansel Adams’ birthday on February 20!) and thought I’d see where this one might go as a monochrome print. There are several things that I like about this image – though I’ll admit that it may not be one that initially grabs a viewer!. First, although it starts out looking like a pretty amorphous mass of seaweed, kelp, and other detritus, eventually I think that an overall form starts to appear – there are some rough patters formed by sequences of lighter material, by some of the stringy “branches” of the kelp, and by way of some lighter ribbon-like material looping through the image. Second, the print ends up with a wide range of tonalities, ranging from pure black to pure paper-white.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM at 105mm
ISO 200, f/16, 1/15 second

keywords: weston, beach, point, lobos, state, reserve, park, california, usa, north america, wrack, leaf, float, stem, branch, rock, texture, plant, foliage, sea, ocean, pacific, shore, storm, tossed, nature, black and white, monochrome, coast, monterey, carmel, twist, scenic, travel, stock

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

High Tide at Weston Beach, Approaching Storm

February 2, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

High tide and storm surf under clouds of an approaching winter storm at Weston Beach, Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

This photograph was made from near the edge of Weston Beach during high tide on a day when a large Pacific storm was approaching. In more benign conditions and at low tide you would might exposed rocks and relatively quiet water in the area near the bottom of the frame – but not on this day! While I’ve ventured out onto the rocks at the left edge of the scene at low tide during the less-active summer months that would have been a very foolish thing to attempt on this day!

As with the photograph I posted yesterday, I thought that this might end up as a black and white image – and I still think it might. However, for now I have decided to go with the “barely-color” rendition. Because of the overcast and the haze created by the spray from the large surf, the colors in the original scene were very muted.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: point, lobos, state, reserve, park, california, usa, monterey, carmel, peninsula, highlands, coast, shore, highway, pacific, ocean, sea, bird, rocks, island, seascape, landscape, wave, surf, rugged, bluff, sky, clouds, storm, approaching, atmosphere, recession, silhouette, travel, scenic, weston, beach, high, tide, stock

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