Tag Archives: close up

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Blue Stone Vortex

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Blue Stone Vortex
“Blue Stone Vortex” — Curving and intersecting fractures in Sierra Nevada rock under stormy skies.

While I’m often drawn to the large scale landscapes, intimate landscapes appeal to me, too. The big photos do give the grand perspective of the landscape, but I think that images of smaller elements and components of the larger scene can tell us just as much about a place. And their sometimes-abstract nature lets us see the landscape in new ways that we perhaps had not thought of.

The grand landscape was not cooperating when I I photographed these rocks. It had been raining and it was still very cloudy. Are the rocks really this color? That’s a good question! The landscape looks different under various sorts of light, and often our vision system “corrects” for this and we do not notice it. I knew that the overcast was having an effect, but until I opened this photograph (and others made at the same time) in post, I had not realized just how blue the light was. Sometimes I “correct” these strong colors, but this time I decided to go with it.

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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Buds in Soft Light

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Buds in Soft Light
The tiny branch and incipient flowers of a California plant.

Buds in Soft Light. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

The tiny branch and incipient flowers of a California plant.

Readers and viewers have probably figured out by now that I’m anything but an expert on plant identification. I often recognize a plant from experience, know where and how it grows… and have little or no idea what it is called. There are some exceptions, and I’m not entirely unable to name familiar plants. But I do — as some recently noticed — still sometimes get it entirely wrong. All of this is an introduction to saying that I have no idea at all what this very small plant actually is.

Yet, I was intrigued by it. With a macro lens I could get close enough to reveal some details that would otherwise be easy to miss, including the subtle magenta shading of the buds. I made the photograph very late in the day as I was returning from a hike in Bay Area hills.

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

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Photographs: Nature

Viola Flower

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Viola Flower
Close-up photograph of a colorful viola flower.

Viola Flower. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Close-up photograph of a colorful viola flower.

This viola almost seems to me to have a flame-like quality, at least if you can see the purple on the petals as seeming to emerge from that bright yellow center. If you look closely you may spot a surprise — a couple of small bugs hanging out on the petals.

This is another — and almost the last — of the photographs we made on a late-spring evening at the San Francisco Peninsula garden that has been the subject of so many recent images. In some ways this might have been the perfect lazy photographer evening: show up, get some snacks and a drink, sit next to a meadow and watch the evening light come on, the walk a few steps to nearby gardens to make photographs.

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

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Photographs: Nature

Yellow and White Flower

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Yellow and White Flower
Close-up photograph of the center of a yellow and white flower.

Yellow and White Flower. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Close-up photograph of the center of a yellow and white flower.

Once again, I shift from the world of the very large to the world of the very small. This is a photograph of the center of a rose (as Patty reminded me) in a San Francisco Peninsula public garden that we visited in late May. I don’t always find this subject easy to photograph, but by getting very close and muting the brighten light with a shade I think I managed to reveal some of the subtle color of the petals.

I used to think that I mostly worked almost exclusively in landscape photographer mode. Then, perhaps a couple of decades ago, I started to get serious about certain kinds of wildlife. Later I became fascinated by street photography, of all things. I’ve always photographed an occasional flower, often on backpacking trips, but it was more of an afterthought than a priority. But in the last few years I finally gave in, got the macro lens, and when we visit locations like this one I’m often content to use only that lens.

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 | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

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