Tag Archives: blossom

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Desert Mallow Buds

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Desert Mallow Buds
Desert Mallow Buds

Desert Mallow Buds. Death Valley National Park, California. April 2. 2014.© Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Desert mallow buds begin to open, Death Valley National Park

Much to our surprise, in this third of three straight California drought years, we found an abundance of wildflowers during our early April visit to Death Valley National Park this year. Throughout the state, things are not on their normal yearly cycles. Because of the very serious drought, many plants did not come up at all during the usual winter time frame, and now that spring is here we see many others blooming much earlier than usual. We had assumed, along with a lot of other people, that the widespread drought was going to make this a very poor year for desert wildflowers.

We were wrong. Even outside the park on the drive there we started to see a lot of flowers in the arid portions of Southern California and to the east of the southern end of the Sierra Nevada. Many desert plants are very opportunistic, bursting forth when a bit of rain falls at the right time, and rain had recently fallen out here. Oddly enough, as I photographed these opening desert mallow buds here in the desert mountains of the park… it was very cold and starting to snow!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Desert Mallow Buds

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Desert Mallow Buds
Desert Mallow Buds

Desert Mallow Buds. Death Valley National Park, California. April 2, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Desert Mallow buds in the Panamint Mountains, Death Valley National Park

We found these flowers high in the Panamint Mountains not far from Death Valley National Park’s Emigrant Pass, though you can find them all over the park if you are there during the spring bloom. I’ve seen several names given to them: Desert Mallow, Orange Mallow, Globe Mallow. The fully developed flower opens into a goblet shape, but here we see some buds that are yet to open along with a few flowers than are just blooming.

I recently wrote that this turned out to be a pretty good wildflower year in Death Valley, perhaps to the surprise of many in the current drought-plagued period. Desert wildflowers seem to be very opportunistic, waiting if there is no water but bursting forth suddenly when it rains. Near the end of March and the beginning of April there was significant precipitation, especially in the higher elevation areas such as the Panamint Mountains. As we drove into the park we were somewhat surprised to see a lot of extensive wildflower displays, especially as we crossed Towne Pass. While there were not that many flowers on the valley floor, up high they were abundant. On this day we traveled up into the Panamints very early in the morning and then spent time wandering around and photographing various things. At one point we stopped alongside a section of the road where we spotted some large cactus plants, and we soon saw that the area was covered with all sorts of wildflowers.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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.

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

Trillium

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Trillium
Trillium

Trillium. Muir Woods National Monument, California. March 14, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A single trillium flower rises about leaves against a dark background

For a variety of reasons I decided to make this a black and white photograph, even though the trillium flower is a beautiful thing to see in color, especially when softly lit by light filtering down through the redwood forest and when there is a dark, amorphous background. Because the colors can be striking, perhaps the pure form of the flower may be more visible in black and white. In addition, in many ways working in monochrome permits me more flexibility in the post-processing stage.

These flowers blossom every March at Muir Woods, the closest place I know where I can reliably find them. After a number of years shooting there I have a pretty good idea of both where and when to find them, and this flower was along one of the trails where hundreds of the flowers can appear during a short window just before the start of spring. This year I visited perhaps a week after the peak—though there were still new plants pushing up from the ground—and the drought seems to have reduced the number and quality of the flowers a bit. But a single flower is still enough to make a photograph!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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 | Facebook | Google+ | 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.

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

Purple Trillium Flower

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Purple Trillium Flower
Purple Trillium Flower

Purple Trillium Flower. Muir Woods National Monument, California. March 14, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

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.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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 | Facebook | Google+ | 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.