Tag Archives: california

Photographs: Nature

Wisteria Leaves

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Wisteria Leaves
Spring wisteria leaves, San Francisco Bay Area.

Special Note: Patty and I are presenting a Silicon Valley Open Studios event on May 21 and 22. Look us up (Dan | Patty) or contact us for information. Visit us and see our prints!

Wisteria Leaves. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Spring wisteria leaves, San Francisco Bay Area.

The process leading me to this photograph was a bit oblique. This is another image from our spring visits to a garden full of seasonal flowers. I had been photographing tulips when I was distracted by wisteria plants that were almost completely covered with dense flowers. I went to photograph the flowers, but up close they didn’t see quite as fascinating as the bush seen as a whole. But as I worked on photographing the flowers the leaves kept getting in my way… until I realized that perhaps they might make the photograph.

Moving from focusing on the flowers to incorporating the leaves, I first simply included a few leaves in a flower photograph to provide a bit of contrast. As I worked I continued to given the leaves a larger and larger portion of the images. Soon I was primarily focused on the leaves, including the flowers only as background. I placed the flowers behind the leaves and narrowed the focus zone to emphasize the leaves. Eventually, as in this photograph, I removed any obvious presence of the flowers at all.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Structures and Objects

Crack in the Wall

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Crack in the Wall
A matrix of cracks in a very old cement wall.

Special Note: Patty and I are presenting a Silicon Valley Open Studios event on May 21 and 22. Look us up (Dan | Patty) or contact us for information. Visit us and see our prints!

Crack in the Wall. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A matrix of cracks in a very old cement wall.

This is (yet another!) photograph of a subject that was not my primary target when I went out to make pictures. That seems to be a theme recently. To recap, when I go to photograph some particular subject, I keep my eyes open for other subjects that may be lurking nearby. There’s almost always something else interesting in the vicinity waiting to be discovered.

We were photographing spring flowers at an extensive public garden surrounding a historic mansion. We entered, following our usual path along a walkway that skirts the perimeter of a large semi-enclosed area. Stairs led me into this place, and as I poked around I became interested in the weathering of the old concrete wall — now covered by moss in places and filled with cracks. Among other things, I was intrigued by the dissonance between the nearly random form of the crack and the linear interruption of the horizontal edge.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Eroded Badlands Hills

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Eroded Badlands Hills
“Eroded Badlands Hills” — Deeply eroded badlands hills and more distant mountains in morning light, Death Valley National Park.

Special Note: Patty and I are presenting a Silicon Valley Open Studios event on May 21 and 22. Look us up (Dan | Patty) or contact us for information. Come and see our prints!

You could look at this photograph in several ways, but I think the complex patterns of this landscape are the main attraction. Recently I read an article about photography that suggested (to paraphrase) that landscape photography aspires toward abstraction. I like that idea a lot. I feel there should be more to a landscape photograph than an ostensible “record” of things in front of the camera. Ideally photographs can be viewed on multiple levels simultaneously — our relationship to the place and the way we see it, the sum of compositional elements, some level of mystery, suggestions of things not contained in the frame, emotional implications, and more.

This feels like one of those photographs to me. You could respond to the remarkable nature of the landscape that was in front of the camera. You could also consider the visual forms from an abstract perspective — the complex patterns of elements in contrary and parallel motion. You are free to ponder where this portrayal of the landscape fits into the larger scheme of landscape art. And who am I to try to stop you from looking for relations to other, larger things?

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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Photographs: Nature

Fallen Flower

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Fallen Flower
A fallen flower rests lies on a bed of old leaves and sticks.

Fallen Flower. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A fallen flower rests lies on a bed of old leaves and sticks.

Special Note: Patty and I are presenting a Silicon Valley Open Studios event on May 21 and 22. Look us up there or contact us for more information. Come and see our prints!

As I have written previously, as I photograph one subject I often am also on the lookout for other things that might make a photograph. As we fixate on our primary subject — quite important! — we risk missing other subjects lurking in the neighborhood. The old advice was “always look behind, too” — that’s a reminder look up, look down, look over, look under, look everywhere. You will probably find something interesting.

We were at a large public garden full of spectacularly beautiful spring flower displays. I mostly photographed colorful flowers, but I also poked around a bit. Some time ago I began looking underneath the plants that provide the main show, especially in gardens like this one where interesting things fall to the ground and lie unnoticed in the soft shadows. This flower had reached a poignant stage — it retained its color and shape but had been discarded in the litter beneath the bushes where it was beginning to decay.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

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