Tag Archives: brown

Colorful Giant Leaf

December 15, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

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.

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

Oaks and Grass, Late Summer

August 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Late summer morning fog clears about oak and grass-covered California hills

Today’s photographic journey was a short one — back to a local park where I have photographed for quite a few years, though not recently. This is a place that I used to go to almost every week, and where I hiked just about every trail, to the point that I became intimately familiar with the place in all seasons. It is a landscape of rolling hills with a few high, rocky outcroppings, many oak trees, and grassland. In the manner of most of California, the grass deeply affects the appearance — changing from “impossible green” in winter and spring to brown or golden, depending upon your disposition. I think of it as golden.

This morning I was in a bit of an autumn frame of mind. (A separate post today will have more to say about that pleasant state.) I got up early to discover that the area was covered by the typical coastal high fog. (I live perhaps an hour’s drive from the Pacific Ocean.) This is not the sort of romantic and moody fog that sits low to the ground and floats among trees. It is the higher, drab, gray kind of fog that produces an undifferentiated sky and very flat light. However, at this time of year that fog will most certainly clear, usually by mid-morning. So I left home in these gray conditions, planning to be among the oaks and grass when the fog began to break up.

Photographs: Music & Musicians, Photographs: People

Meredith Brown, French Horn

July 26, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Symphony Silicon Valley principal French hornist Meredith Brown

This weekend I am sharing two more photographs from my ongoing project photographing professional classical musicians, a three-year project during which I have the opportunity to attend many rehearsals and concerts and generally spend a lot of time learning to see and understand this world. (I already understood more than most since I’ve been part of it in several ways for many years.) Both of these photographs are casual shots made during rehearsals. Such photos remind us of several things, I think. First, it is possible to get some odd ideas about who the musicians are if your only experience is seeing them in formal concert situations — but backstage and during rehearsals… they are “regular people” just like all of us. Second, and from the same perspective, it is easy to overlook that fact that the vast majority of the work necessary for a live performance is actually done outside of the performance, with often intense and lengthy periods of individual practice and preparation and significant time spent on group rehearsal. And, finally, in both of these photographs I think you will see the intense focus of these musicians. Meredith Brown is the principal French hornist of the Symphony Silicon Valley.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Wildlife

Brown Pelicans, Fog, Water

July 20, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A large flock of brown pelicans flies above the Pacific Ocean on a foggy summer morning

I have a thing about pelicans. They seem to me to stand apart from other birds along the California coast, most often coasting sedately on the wind, either high above as they pass along and above coastal cliffs or else down so close to the water that it seems like they will touch it. I have learned to watch for them, and I know of some places where it is likely that I’ll be able to see them close up, often by going to places high along cliff-top bluffs along which they frequently fly.

This large group completely surprised me — they came out of the blue, and I had not even been thinking about pelicans as I finished photographing a landscape scene from the tripod. I was just about as unprepared as possible for photographing birds in flight. Everything on the camera was set to manual — focus, shutter speed, aperture — and the camera had been in live view mode and on a low ISO. I was at the back of my car removing the camera from the tripod to put it away and probably was in the middle of collapsing the tripod legs when I looked up and saw a huge flock of pelicans just above the roadway to my south. I knew I had just seconds to reconfigure the camera before they arrived at my position — at least I had a long lens attached already! — so I did what I often do in these cases. I ignored the birds as I instinctively went through a bird photography set-up routine as quickly as I could: auto-focus on, stabilization on, camera in aperture priority mode (that’s a long story), ISO jacked up to 800. The only thing I forgot was shifting into burst mode, but that isn’t totally necessary. Finishing this quick sequence, I looked up to find the birds just about at my position, raised the camera, quickly tried to frame the birds against the background of the foggy Pacific, and made a few quick exposures before they moved out of range and faded into the fog.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: brown

Colorful Giant Leaf

Oaks and Grass, Late Summer

Meredith Brown, French Horn

Brown Pelicans, Fog, Water

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.