Tag Archives: branches

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

Forest, Gazos Creek

Leave a comment
Forest, Gazos Creek
Forest, Gazos Creek

Forest, Gazos Creek. Gazos Creek Road, California. July 12, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A dense mixed redwood and big leaf maple forest along Gazos Creek, California.

Today I used the excuse of driving my son over the hill to UC-Santa Cruz for his summer school class to get in a short trip up the coast north of Santa Cruz. We are in the midst of the “June gloom” period along the coast of northern California, and the fog doesn’t clear until later in the day, and never does clear completely in some areas. As I left Santa Cruz the fog bank was visible but well off-shore, but as I travelled north I eventually encountered it right around Año Nuevo State Reserve.

I had a vague plan to check out Gazos Creek Road, having heard from some other photographers that there are interesting redwood trees and other subjects in that area. Since I still had some time, I turned up the road and it quickly narrowed as it followed the creek and the bottom of the canyon into the Santa Cruz Mountains. Since this was more or less a scouting trip, I drove all the way to the end of the road without stopping much, but on the way back down I decided to stop and make some photographs of this grove of new-grown coast redwoods mixed with the curving trunks of big leaf maple trees.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

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

Burned Forest, Yosemite Valley, Autumn

2 Comments
Burned Forest, Yosemite Valley, Autumn
Burned Forest, Yosemite Valley, Autumn

Burned Forest, Yosemite Valley, Autumn. Yosemite National Park, California. October 31, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening light in a burned section of the forest on the floor of Yosemite Valley.

I’ve been sitting on this photograph for a while, so I figure I’ll post it now. I made it last fall – on Halloween, actually! – during a fall color trip to the Valley. Late on my final evening I finally stopped and walked out across the old terminal moraine that crosses the lower Valley not far upstream from Pohono Bridge. (When you drive into the Valley, the road splits, and before long you’ll see the south end of this feature to your left as you go up a short climb.) I started at the north end and as I walked south looking for a photograph it was a very quite, still, and cold evening.

I finally found a spot where I could go down the lower side of the hill just a bit and find a relatively clear shot through the trees that wasn’t blocked by foliage closer to my position. This area has been burned, and I assume that it is the result of one of the management burns that often occur late in the season. These fires attempt to strengthen the forest by reintroducing the natural process and cycles of fire. The result is interesting charring patterns along the lower portions of the trees, temporary burned undergrowth, and then as the recovery takes place a much more open and airy sort of forest as you see in this photograph.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter (follow me) | Facebook (“Like” my page) | 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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Remains of a Desert Plant, Pebbles

Leave a comment
Remains of a Desert Plant, Pebbles
Remains of a Desert Plant, Pebbles

Remains of a Desert Plant, Pebbles. Death Valley National Park, California. February 20, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The skeletal branches of a dead plant against the pebbles of a desert wash, Death Valley National Park, California.

I came across the skeletal remains of this desert plant while photographing along the east side of Death Valley near the area identified on some maps as the Kit Fox Hills. I had just finished photographing across the floor of the Valley, capturing an area full of sparse desert plants backlit by the very last rays of sun, and the light had diminished after the sun dropped below the tops of the ridges on the west side of the Valley.

I saw this bit of dead plant near the edge of a wash among the rubble of many-colored rocks and pebbles that had, I presume, been washed down from the canyons in the mountains to the east. For a place that seems so colorless from a distance, there is an astonishing variety of color in these rocks. I can see greens, blues, various shades of pink and purple, and some that almost are orange. The branches are just as I found them, and the soft light with just a bit of directionality from the right fills the shadows that would otherwise be very dark.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | 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: Architecture, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Metal Walled Building With Door, Tree and Lawn, Night

Leave a comment
Metal Walled Building With Door, Tree and Lawn, Night
Metal Walled Building With Door, Tree and Lawn, Night

Metal Walled Building With Door, Tree and Lawn, Night. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, California. February 26, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Night photograph of a metal walled building with a door, sidewalk, lawn, and tree – Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.

This is a bit of a different sort of night photograph compared to the others I have posted in this recent series. (Most of those were shot at some distance from my subjects – generally old, historic buildings – and in very saturated and colorful light.) Near the end of my evening shoot at Mare Island in late February I was walking back from a dark and lonely corner of the place when I passed a more modern facility, an out-patient clinic of some sort. This facility is something of a stark contrast to the surrounding area. The building is relatively new and the walls are not the usual brick and/or corrugated metal, but instead are a more modern-looking sort of metal paneling. There is landscaping, including small patches of lawn and small trees. And the light is completely different. Elsewhere in the darker areas of Mare Island the lighting tends toward yellow, coming from sodium vapor lamps, though it also includes green and occasionally other hues. But here the light is fairly neutral and actually looks almost white. I wasn’t quite sure what to do! :-)

But then it seemed to me that it might be interesting to see what I could do with this modern (though not flawless) structure and its surrounding landscaping. Here a small door, partly blocked by some sort of signs, leads into a very small section of a building and is lit a bit mysteriously from above. Sidewalks lead away from the door and a small, forlorn patch of lawn sits near the corner of the building, with a single leafless tree supported by stakes. When I saw this spot and when I look at the photograph now I get this feeling that there should be some story behind all of this… but I have no idea what it might be.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | 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.