Category Archives: Photographs: Nature

Hostas Leaves #2

Hostas Leaves #2 - Hostas leaves growing in a Portland, Oregon garden
Hostas leaves growing in a Portland, Oregon garden

Hostas Leaves #2. Portland, Oregon. July 3, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Hostas leaves growing in a Portland, Oregon garden.

I made this small series of photographs of the leaves of hostas plants while wandering around the extensive rose gardens at Portland, Oregon’s Washington Park. I’m not a big fan of photographing roses – though I’m fascinated by looking at them – so I had not made any photographs while visiting that primary area of the garden, but once we began to poke around in some of the peripheral gardens that featured other kinds of plants I started to see things that attracted my own photographic interest more strongly. This set of leaves was in a large bed of hostas plants along a walkway and in the shade, and I thought that the colors and textures of their overlapping leaves created some very interesting patterns.

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.

Hostas Leaves #1

Hostas Leaves #1 - Hostas leaves growing in a Portland, Oregon garden
Hostas leaves growing in a Portland, Oregon garden

Hostas Leaves #1. Portland, Oregon. July 3, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Hostas leaves growing in a Portland, Oregon garden.

I made this small series of photographs of the leaves of hostas plants while wandering around the extensive rose gardens at Portland, Oregon’s Washington Park. I’m not a big fan of photographing roses – though I’m fascinated by looking at them – so I had not made any photographs while visiting that primary area of the garden, but once we began to poke around in some of the peripheral gardens that featured other kinds of plants I started to see things that attracted my own photographic interest more strongly. This set of leaves was in a large bed of hostas plants along a walkway and in the shade, and I thought that the colors and textures of their overlapping leaves created some very interesting patterns.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | FacebookGoogle+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.

Japanese Maple Leaves

Japanese Maple Leaves - A small branch of a Japanese Maple tree.
A small branch of a Japanese Maple tree.

Japanese Maple Leaves. Portland, Oregon. July 3, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A small branch of a Japanese Maple tree.

Japanese maple trees are ubiquitous in the gardens of Portland, Oregon, and during out early July visit to that town I had plenty of opportunities to photograph them. Here I decided to shoot a very small portion of a tree close up. I had been walking through this garden and focusing of larger views of whole trees and groups of trees and surrounding subjects, but when I walked past a small group of taller trees I noticed small twigs with a few leaves growing from the otherwise bare lower trunks and thought they might make interesting subjects themselves, especially in the very soft light in the shade of the taller trees.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | FacebookGoogle+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.

Forest, Tarn, and Granite

Forest, Tarn, and Granite - Sierra forest and granite reflected in the surface of a small tarn, Yosemite National Park.
Sierra forest and granite reflected in the surface of a small tarn, Yosemite National Park.

Forest, Tarn, and Granite. Yosemite National Park, California. July 28, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sierra forest and granite reflected in the surface of a small tarn, Yosemite National Park.

Having visited the Sierra and the Yosemite high country for more than a few decades, I have become attached to a number of small and unlikely little places that have personal meaning to me. This is one of those odd little spots. At a point along Tioga Pass Road there is a small unmarked turnout like many other such turnouts along this route. One time a few years ago I stopped here for reasons that I can no longer recall. I got out of the car and noticed a very faint path leading away from the road – so, of course, I took it! It led though tightly spaced trees and towards a small canyon, passing several small ponds along the way. I also recall mosquitos. Lots of mosquitos.

Since that time I have returned to this spot quite a few times – in snow on the day that the road first opens, on sunny summer days like this one, and on damp and foggy evenings in late fall not long before the highway closes for the season. Where is the spot, exactly? All I’ll say is that it is in Yosemite and that you can get to it by walking away from Tioga Pass Road. Frankly, I don’t think the specific location really matters to anyone but me and perhaps a few others who might stop here, too. There are thousands of such little spots throughout the Sierra, and it is your discovery of your own personal places among them that can make them special.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | FacebookGoogle+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.