Tag Archives: botanical

Love-In-A-Mist Flower

Image July 3, 2019 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The flower of “love-in-a-mist,” or nigella damascena.

When it comes to flowers, I’m somewhat unsophisticated. It has always been this way, even with wildflowers that I have encountered for years. I only know the names of a few of them and the Latin names of virtually none. On the other hand, I often do “know” them by appearance, by location, by the annual time of their appearance, and more.

I’m perhaps even worse when it comes to domesticated flowers! I know a rose when I see one, but identify what type of rose? Nope. And there are a lot of flowers that are, to me… simply flowers. This love-in-a mist flower is in that category. I had not heard of it, so I got to have the fun experience of “discovering” it on a recent visit to a botanical garden. Everything about this flower surprises me — the blue petals, the green and purple near its center, and the wild shapes it holds.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Photographs: Nature

Red Leaves

Image July 1, 2019 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Red and purple spring leaves.

I made this photograph during a morning visit to a botanical garden with Patty a few weeks ago. We arrived early enough that there were still areas next to hedges, under trees, and near structures that remained in the shade — the full daylight sun is often too intense and harsh for this sort of photography. These leaves, while themselves in shade, were close enough to brighter light to puck up some directional highlights.

The colors actually were pretty much this intense. The plant has very reddish (or maroon in some light) leaves, and the shadows shifted the balance toward blue. Something that only occurred to me much later — the soft, rounded shapes of the background level almost suggest the very blurry bokeh shapes in the even further distance.

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Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Nature

Leaf

Image September 18, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A single leaf against a shadowed background

I photographed this remarkable leaf inside the conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden. The plants were phenomenal, but the conditions were not! It was terribly hot. The humidity was high, even for August in New York. And the light was limited… and I was shooting handheld. But the remarkable plant displays were too interesting to pass up, so I spent a bit of time photographing.

In these surroundings most of the photographs were, of necessity, close-ups, focusing on a few leaves or flowers and trying to exclude the background. (This was inside a building, and including the other visitors or the steel construction wasn’t what I had in mind.) Here the solitary curving green leaf was set off against a background of deep purple-brown leaves.

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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Architectural Detail

Image September 15, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Architectural details, New York Botanical Gardens

We began our recent trip with a short visit to New York City. This gave us a chance to visit with relatives there and to break up the jet-lag-inducing flight to Europe. Because the visit was short — we were only in New York for three nights before we flew on to London — we took it easy and didn’t try to see too much this time. We hung out near our Manhattan hotel, walked a lot, went out to eat, and made one longer trip to the The Bronx to visit the New York Botanical Garden.

The Garden is spectacular, very large, and full of interesting things to see. Unfortunately, we were there on a typical August New York Day… which many of you may know means 90+ degrees and near-100% humidity. Our first stop was indoors, to see a small exhibit devoted to O’Keeffe paintings from her visit to Hawaii. In the building shown in this photograph there was a companion presentation that featured some of same plants and flowers that were the subjects of her work on the Islands. Needless to say, inside this greenhouse-like structure on a hot humid New York day… it was even hotter and more humid! We stuck it out for a while, but we eventually had to go back outside. As we did so, we got a bit of light-softening overcast, and I made a few photographs of the forms and textures of this remarkable building