Tag Archives: brush

Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Redwood National & State Parks

Redwood Forest Understory

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Redwood Forest Understory
Smaller plants grow on the forest floor beneath the canopy of North Coast redwoods

Redwood Forest Understory. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Smaller plants grow on the forest floor beneath the canopy of North Coast redwoods

This has become a bit of a repeating theme here recently, but this is another photograph of the dense vegetation of Northern California redwood forests — this scene is in Del Norte State Park, part of the Redwood National And State Parks system that I visited earlier this month. During my visit I was looking for rhododendrons — I found some, but it turned out that I was probably just a bit early. This trail is known for the flowers and they were there, just not in great numbers quite yet.

Sections of this trail traverse a ridge, but on either side the forest grows in coastal canyons. Here, especially early and late in the day, the light is soft and muted a lot of the time — often the ideal conditions for photographing this subject. The trees are varied, including both massive old-growth specimens and some younger trees fighting their way upwards for a bit of sun. The understory is lush, with ferns, bushes, rhododendron plants, and much more.

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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: Central California, Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature

Marshland Trees, Autumn Haze

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Marshland Trees, Autumn Haze
Marshland trees with fall foliage on a hazy San Joaquin day.

Marshland Trees, Autumn Haze. San Joaquin Valley, California. December 9, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Marshland trees with fall foliage on a hazy San Joaquin day.

This was quite a day — San Francisco Bay Area to the San Joaquin Valley to the Sierra foothills and back, sunrise alone in tule fog among the birds to the crowded (and fun!) reception for the “AVIAN — Birds in a Changing World” exhibit in Oakhurst, and lots of driving!

The day began with my pre-dawn arrival in the San Joaquin Valley wetlands, where tule fog was forming as the first light appeared. Although it was a weekend morning, there was almost no one else out there besides me and a few thousand birds. I saw a giant flight of what I believe were trim-color blackbirds in the distance — I’ve never seen so many at one before — and then an impressive dawn fly-out of sandhill cranes. A bit later in the morning, once the early morning bird action had subsided, I spent a bit of time photographing the landscape. This beautiful tree, with late-season autumn color, is striking in its quiet presence in this mostly flat landscape of ponds and grasslands and, of course, birds.

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

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Color Transition

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Autumn Color Transition
Brush and aspens undergoing the autumn color transition in the eastern Sierra Nevada

Autumn Color Transition. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. October 4, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Brush and aspens undergoing the autumn color transition in the eastern Sierra Nevada

When we think of fall color in the Sierra Nevada, for many the first (and perhaps only?) thoughts are of the aspens. The aspens are beautiful — more about them in a moment — but they aren’t the whole show. For example, where the high desert environment meets the mountain environment there can be a lot of spectacularly colorful brush, and the dried grasses contribute their own golden brown tones. Willows can become quite yellow, and even some ferns can glow in the right light. I suppose that this photograph is largely about aspens, but it chose to include some of those other color sources, too.

The aspen color transition is not a sudden thing. In fact, if you start with the earliest oddball individual yellow leaves, often seen by mid September and sometimes earlier, and look all the way out until late October when the last leaves finally fall, you can be looking at a period of as long as six weeks. (To be clear, the core of the season is still the first half of October plus a little.) Even in individual locations the color rarely changes all at once, and brilliantly colorful trees may stand next to trees that are still green. This location along the eastern base of the range is a fine example. Obviously some of the trees are approaching peak color. But if you look closely you may spot a few trees that are already bare. And the great or almost-entirely green trees area still several days to a week before their best color.

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Dense Brush, Morning Light

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Dense Brush, Morning Light
Morning light falls on dense brush at Pinnacles National Park

Dense Brush, Morning Light. Pinnacles National Park, California. March 17, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light falls on dense brush at Pinnacles National Park

Today’s photograph is another from my recent re-introduction to Pinnacles National Park in the mountains to the east of California’s Salinas Valley, following a gap of decades since my last visit. Despite being a place that I regularly visited when I was much younger — back then I rode a bike there to camp, went there to rock climb, hiked the trails and caves — it had somehow slipped off my map of places to visit. For the past few years, since its conversion from National Monument to National Park status, I’ve been planning to finally return.

If your experience with National Parks is mainly with the big, iconic parks such as Yosemite or Yellowstone, this park is going to surprise you with its intimacy. It is a relatively small place, and even its primary visual feature, the High Peaks, doesn’t present a single, focused identifying image in the way that, say, Half Dome or Old Faithful do. It seems more the sort of park that is about subtle and small things and the overall experience of the place — mostly California chaparral terrain that can evoke a sense of near desert at times. I made this photograph earlier in the morning when I paused along a route through a canyon when I came upon dense, back-lit foliage.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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