Tag Archives: county

Photographs: Nature

Baby Blue Eyes

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Baby Blue Eyes
Baby Blue Eyes flower against green spring plants.

Baby Blue Eyes. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Baby Blue Eyes flower against green spring plants.

Since the pandemic lockdown began almost three months ago, I’ve made it out into the “wild” only a couple of times. Recently the authorities in our area loosened things enough to permit visits to hiking trails in the surrounding hills. I’ve gone early in the morning on weekdays, when fewer people are there, and I’ve stuck to wider trails that used to be dirt roads. It was great to get out — as recently as last Friday — but I did miss most of this year’s wildflower season around here.

This photograph comes from a favorite place along a little trail through a small valley not far from the trailhead. The trail descends into this valley under a canopy of trees and frequently crosses small creeks. Even on warm days it is a place of quiet and dark refuge.

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: Nature

Fairy Lanterns, Spring

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Fairy Lanterns, Spring
A cluster of spring fairy lantern wildflowers.

Fairy Lanterns, Spring. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A cluster of spring fairy lantern wildflowers.

These are among my favorite spring wildflowers here in my part of the world — the San Francisco Bay Area. The photograph is from last spring, as this year my opportunities to go out and photograph wildflowers have been much more limited. I did photograph flowers like these at the very beginning of their cycle, when they were still mostly buds and before the social lock-down commenced. Even when the rules were relaxed to allow hikes, the location of these flowers is one in which social distancing could be difficult to maintain.

I photographed this little group of flowers at a local spot where I first “discovered” this kind of flower over a decade ago. Oddly perhaps, given that I’ve hiked in these hills for decades, I was unaware of the fairy lantern flowers and surprised to see them. These grow a long a narrow and somewhat steep trail that heads through a narrow ravined, a place that is often in shade but with a bit of sunlight each day.

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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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.

Photographs: Nature

Milkmaids Blossoms

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Milkmaids Blossoms
Milkmaids wildflower spring blossoms, California.

Milkmaids Blossoms. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Milkmaids wildflower spring blossoms, California.

While I never have been very good at keeping track of the names of various California wildflowers, I look forward to them each spring. And despite my inability to remember what to call them, I generally know where and when I will find them, and I usually recognize the plants even when the flowers are not present.

There are a few local places I go to find them. These spots are not what anyone else would regard as being special during most of the year — a segment of a trail most folks follow for exercise, a lonely hilltop in a county park, a narrow place in a little canyon I know. These flowers are from one of this places, a little canyon in a county park where I’ve hiked for years.

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 | 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.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Wildflower-filled Meadow

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Wildflower-filled Meadow
A wildflower-filled meadow in San Luis Obispo County, California

Wildflower-filled Meadow. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

wildflower-filled meadow in San Luis Obispo County, California.

This photograph has been sitting on my desktop for several months now, almost since the time we came back from a spectacular visit to California spring wildflowers, followed by several days spend photographing in Death Valley National Park. I share it perhaps less as a brilliant photographic object, and more as a witness to the excellent and extensive spring bloom we had this year, brought on by above-average rainfall in February.

This location is in the south-central California inland hills between the coast and the Central Valley. During much of the year this country of grassland and oak woodlands is quite dry, and portions of it would impress you as being nearly a desert. But in these wet years the place comes alive for a few months in California fashion. Sometime in winter, when much of the rest of the country is freezing and perhaps under snow, the rains come and new grasses and other plants sprout. Yes, we’re brown in summer here… but we can be “impossibly green” in winter. Over the next few month, typically up until the first part of April, there is a crescendo of green, climaxed by sometimes-astonishing wildflowers… like this bed of yellow flowers spreading across a meadow.

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 | Facebook | Email

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

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