Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Purple Trillium Flower

March 20, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Purple trillium flower beneath the canopy of the redwood forest, Muir Woods National Monument

The annual blossoming of the trillium flowers at Muir Woods is always a reminder that spring is just around the corner. These flowers bloom in the first half of March, in wild abundance in non-drought years. The number of flowers seemed smaller this year, most likely due to the historic sequence of three very dry years in California, with the current season being perhaps one of the driest on record. Fortunately, after several months of virtually no rain at all, the tap was turned back on briefly in the past month and there is now at least some moisture in this redwood forest environment.

After photographing here for some years, I have a pretty good idea of when and where to look for these flowers. Although it took me a bit of time to get there, as I was distracted along the way by other subjects, I eventually headed straight to a familiar trail that traverses a hillside above a creek. Here there are many trillium plants, and in the morning theory are still in the soft light that is most conducive to photographing them. Since there are usually quite a few of the flowers, I tend to almost think less about the individual flowers and more about their placement against the background of other forest elements and about what sort of light they have. Here I found a flower that was in a position such that I could shoot down onto it, placing leaves behind the blossom, and which provided a darker background without a lot of distracting detail.

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: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Golden Gate Bridge, Winter Morning

March 19, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

San Francisco comes to life beyond the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge on a cloudy winter morning.

Passing across the Golden Gate Bridge before dawn on my way to points north, I stopped—as I often do—to see what sort of dawn light might appear. Since photographing the bridge and the bay was not my main goal for the day I did not spend a lot of time looking around for unique vantage points, instead going for a tried and true location from which I have photographed many times and in all kinds of conditions.

It was close to actual sunrise when I made this photograph, though what sun there might have been was hidden behind a thick fog bank across the bay in the direction of Oakland. Light was increasing, but many city lights were still on along the waterfront and elsewhere. One of my favorite photographs from this location is one I made at night a few years ago, a black and white image shot through this tower and with the City in the background. This is a very similar composition, though the light here is very different, with the primary subject being the immense north tower of the bridge, set between support cables and with the blue world of the early morning city and bay beyond.

Not Photography

An Incomplete Trip

March 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

(This is the first in what might become an occasional series of posts having little or nothing to do with photography—the “Not Photography” series for those of you who keep track of blog categories.)

A simple photograph of Duck Lake that I saw posted elsewhere today reminded me of a backpacking trip I did some years back, so I thought I’d tell a bit of that story here. It is not a story about photography, believe it or not, though I will add one gratuitous photograph “just because.” ;-)

Lakes Below Duck Pass, Afternoon Showers

I have backpacked for decades, almost entirely in California’s Sierra Nevada, visiting almost every portion of the range, though not by any means every place in this sierra of almost infinite variety. A few years back I made a rough tally of the total number of “trail days,” not counting non-backpacking trips, and it totaled up to something closer to two years than to one—and I’ve continued to backpack since that time.

Over the years I have covered the better part of the famous John Muir Trail (also called the “JMT”), but in pieces and spread over many trips. The trips have ranged from a couple of days in length, when I perhaps only touched a very short segment of the trail, up to several of two weeks or longer when I spent days along its length, often hiking alone but sometimes with friends, and on two memorable trips with my wife Patty. I’ve been over some sections quite a few times, including several areas in the Southern Sierra of Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks and a many in and around Yosemite. A few segments begin to feel like old friends when I return to them.

But there is one section that I have not yet covered. It stretches from Purple Lake to about the Muir Trail Ranch.

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Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

Tugboat, Dawn, San Francisco Bay

March 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A tugboat traverses San Francisco Bay in foggy dawn light

As I often do when heading north across the Golden Gate Bridge for early morning photography, I stopped to photograph the bridge, the bay, and the City as the day began. Arriving there perhaps almost a half hour before sunrise, we drive up a ways into the hills of the Marin Headlands and walked to a popular overlook to see—and photograph—whatever the rising sun might bring.

I’m tempted to write that “it was an unusual morning,” but after photographing here many, many times I’m catching on that there is perhaps no such thing as a “typical” morning on the bay. The diversity of light and atmosphere and weather and subject is unending. On this morning there was fog, but it wasn’t too thick and, perhaps surprisingly, was mostly not at the Golden Gate itself, but over parts of San Francisco and the inner bay. The water was visible below and the sky above, but that sky was partially obscured by the patterns of high clouds from a passing weather front. All of these clouds made things rather gray and murky for a time, though as the sun rose behind the fog bank far to the east, a subtly rose-colored glow briefly colored the water of the bay. Using a very long lens I focused on the wake of a tugboat beginning its trip towards and beyond the entrance to the bay, with a bit of the San Francisco shoreline, the western span of the Bay Bridge, and the reflection of a brighter portion of the bay near Oakland beyond.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Purple Trillium Flower

Golden Gate Bridge, Winter Morning

An Incomplete Trip

Tugboat, Dawn, San Francisco Bay

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.