Tag Archives: blade

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Meadow Grasses, Autumn Rain

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Meadow Grasses, Autumn Rain
Meadow Grasses, Autumn Rain

Meadow Grasses, Autumn Rain. Yosemite Valley, California. October 30, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Meadow grasses made shiny by autumn rain, Yosemite Valley, California.

This fall I have been “playing around” with photographs of very dense and detailed vegetation. (Two other recent related photographs include one of aspen leaves and one of creek dogwood.) This is a difficult thing, especially with a subject whose colors seem somewhat muted, but if it works the largish prints can work both by revealing some form that might be difficult to see in all the detail and by presenting the detail itself. (As much as many of us rightfully point out that sharpness is not everything, sometimes it is pretty important!)

I noticed the subject of this photograph while shooting something quite different. I was standing in a meadow near Curry Village in light rain and using a very long lens to photograph mist and clouds drifting among trees and spires high on the Yosemite Valley rim when I happened to look down at my feet. (Always a good idea to look at the other stuff when shooting a specific subject that you came for.) I noticed the shapes of the grasses and the mixture of greens and browns with the “cool” light from the cloudy conditions. Since I couldn’t shoot this subject with the lens I was using at the moment, I went back to the other subject and made a mental note to switch lens and pay some attention to the grasses when I finished.

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.

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

Cattail and Grasses, Morning Light

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Cattail and Grasses, Morning Light

Cattail and Grasses, Morning Light. Castillero Pond, Calero Hills, California. August 14, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A cattail stands among dry summer grasses at Castillero Pond, Calero Hills, California.

The next in the series – and, yes, there will likely be more! – of photographs of cattails and grasses from a recent morning shoot at Castillero Pond, not far from where I live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In these photographs I was playing with a whole series of ideas: the color and form of the late-season summer cattails in the warm morning side-lighting, the effect of blurring out the background of grasses and pond water, and the interesting color palette of yellow/gold, green, and blue. To a certain extent, I was also “going with the flow” since I had arrived at this pond with no strong preconceptions about what I would shoot- I had vague ideas concerning oak trees and open grassland and possibly photographing birds as I passed the pond – and then ended up being distracted by well over an hour by the subject of this series.

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

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keywords: calero, hills, santa clara, county, park, morning, summer, grass, flora, pond, castillero, plant, nature, california, usa, cat, tail, cattail, plant, blade, stem, branch, seed, bokeh, blur, blue, green, golden, central, northern, light, stock

Photographs: Nature

Detail, Summer Grasses

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Detail, Summer Grasses

Detail, Summer Grasses. Castillero Pond, Calero Hills, California. August 14, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Close-up photograph of summer grasses growing at Castillero Pond, California.

A second photo in the sequence I made on this morning at Castillero Pond in the Calero Hills oak/grassland in northern California. (The terrain and plants are typical of vast areas of central California as well.) These large grasses were growing along the edge of the pond. Unlike most of the grasses, which by now have gone completely dry in California, there were still mostly green since they had the pond as a source of moisture.

I made what might strike some as an odd lens choice for this series. Virtually all of them were shot with a 100-400mm zoom at 400mm. The idea was to get a very narrow depth of field and then throw both foreground and background way out of focus. Sometimes people think that the only way to do this is by using lenses with very large aperture, but an equally (and in some cases more) effective method is to use a very long focal length. This can provide even nicer bokeh than the large aperture approach in many cases.

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

Web: G Dan Mitchell Photography
Twitter: http://twitter.com/gdanmitchell
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keywords: calero, hills, santa clara, county, park, morning, summer, grass, flora, pond, castillero, plant, nature, california, usa, macro, close-up, stem, twig, blade, green, brown, yellow, shadow, bokeh, dense, texture, curve, pattern, dry, stock

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

Spring Grass, Point Lobos

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Spring Grass, Point Lobos

Spring Grass, Point Lobos. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. April 26, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Spring grass in the pine forest at Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

Unfortunately, I’m not expert enough at plant identification to come up with a more precise title than “Spring Grass, Point Lobos.” (Yes, that is an open invitation to friendly botanists to offer up a more precise identification! :-) While I was photographing Rattlesnake Grass – photo posted recently – in this spot in the pine forest at Point Lobos I also noticed the impressive seed heads of this nearby grass. This is another of my plant photographs made with the unlikely 70-200mm zoom lens – again, the long focal length lets me work from a slightly greater distance and use the narrow DOF of the longer lens to create a nice out of focus background.

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

keywords: grass, seed, head, stalk, blade, green, forest, grove, pine, shade, spring, cluster, bokeh, blur, soft, pine, point lobos, state, reserve, park, california, usa, nature, scenic, travel, carmel, monterey, peninsula, foliage, stock