Tag Archives: botanical

Photographs: Nature

Dahlia

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Dahlia
Dahlia blossom

Dahlia. Fort Bragg Botanical Gardens. Fort Bragg, California. July 5, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A dahlia blossom.

I’m not usually the flower photographer around here — that title goes to my wife, Patty, whose passion is seeing and photographing the very small world of flowers. But every so often I give it a try. We spent some time one morning at the beautiful botanical gardens in Fort Bragg, where I made a few photographs including this one of a dark-colored dahlia blossom

We were in Northern California for a few days earlier this week, centered in the Mendocino area but traveling from there to places as far away as Humboldt Redwood State Park and even up to Ferndale, California. Overall it was not a tremendously successful trip for photography, at least not for me. (It was, however, a very successful trip for eating…) Photography in this area is perhaps more condition-dependent than in some other places where I photograph, and the conditions were difficult this time. No matter. Even when I don’t come back with a lot of photographs, I do come back with more knowledge of the place that I can can use the next time I’m there.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature

Colorful Giant Leaf

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Colorful Giant Leaf
Colorful Giant Leaf

Colorful Giant Leaf. Garden, The Huntington, San Marino, California. November 28, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A giant leaf with brilliant fall colors, photographed lying on the ground

I have no clue what kind of leaf this is, and the location where I found it gave no hints. Usually if I find such a thing I can just look up and see the tree from which it came, but when I looked up from this leaf I could see nothing nearby with leaves even close to this one.

The leaf is huge — in my recollection it was well over a foot long. It was on the ground between some cacti and/or succulent plants in a desert garden at the Huntington. The colors were wild, and if there had been a tree full of huge and intensely colorful leaves like this one I would not have missed it! Initially I was attracted by the bright yellow color and the size, but the closer I looked the more I found that the other surprising colors caught my attention — bits of green, a spot of purple, and red highlights along some of the vein structure.

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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Thinking Aloud

Fallen Begonia Blossom

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Fallen Begonia Blossom - A fallen begonia blossom on a bench at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens
A fallen begonia blossom on a bench at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens

Fallen Begonia Blossom. Mendocino Coast Botanical Garden, Fort Bragg, California. August 27, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A fallen begonia blossom on a bench at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens.

On a recent trip to the northern California coast around Mendocino, we spent the better part of a day wandering around at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens in Fort Bragg. If you ever visit this part of California, you will quickly discover that there are lots of flowers there, both wildflowers and cultivated varieties – they seem to like the cooler, moister, foggier climate. The Botanical Gardens is surprisingly large and comprehensive for a private facility in a somewhat out-of-the-way location. It covers many acres, stretching from the coast highway all the way to the edge of bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and it includes a wide range of plant types, not all of which are what you would expect here.

This was our first visit to the Gardens, so we sort of explored rather than trying to necessarily see everything. Not far from the entrance is the structure of the Mauer Display Garden, where begonias were blooming. The flowers and the intensity of their colors were quite amazing. At one point I believe I remarked that I had never seen anything quite as intensely orange as some of the flowers. At one point I looked away from the main displays of living plants and happened to notice this very colorful blossom that had fallen onto the corner of a bench. While the color probably seems unbelievable, it really was this intense. (Photographing these flowers proved to be a great reminder of the exposure challenges we face when using DSLRs to shoot subjects that are intense in one of the three color channels. In some photographs, the red channel was perhaps three to four stops brighter than the other channels!)

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 | 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.