Tag Archives: dark

Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Mushrooms, Redwood Forest

March 29, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Mushrooms grow in the damp soil beneath Muir Woods National Monument redwood forest

On this late spring morning at Muir Woods National Monument I was on the hunt for trillium flowers. Sometimes when I’m looking for one thing I may tend to overlook other interesting things that are right under my nose. I was looking from trillium flowers… and I only saw trillium flowers. But eventually there often comes a moment when I sort of take a slow breath, look away from that central focus, and see the other things around me.

On a damp late spring morning at Muir Woods that “other things” is quite possibly some small living thing that might be hidden away in shadows or down so close to the soil that I don’t see it. And so it was with this small group of mushrooms, poking up from the damp earth in a very shady little spot on a steep section of the hill running alongside my trail. And once I saw this group of fungi, my focus changed and I began to see other mushrooms all over this small spot where a moment before I had only seen dirt.

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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Boulders, Tree, and Dark Granite

September 2, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

A solitary tree stands on granite slabs among glacial erratic boulders against the dark background of a granite face in shadow

I have previously posted a few photographs from this early August four-day shoot in Yosemite, when I ranged between about Olmsted Point and Mono Lake for about four days. The photography was a bit strange compared to more normal years – there was smoke in the air from a fire near Mammoth Lakes and there was not much water due to the drought afflicting the mountains after a second very dry winter. So some of my photography instincts may have been challenged a bit, and I had to adapt to conditions – sometimes ending up shooting in a different place than planned when the haze was too thick, sometimes using the haze as part of the photograph, and also ranging a bit more widely than I might usually do.

On this morning I had decided to “work” that area between roughly Tenaya Lake and some rocky slabs a bit past Olmsted Point. I began at Tenaya just before sunrise, but the smoke haze was making things difficult. I made a few photographs along the curving shore as the first sun hit nearby ridges, but I wasn’t especially happy with the atmosphere or the color and quality of the light so I moved on. The slabs and domes along the road to the west of Tenaya Lake, which track the road for some distance and spread well beyond the road itself, have been an ongoing subject of interest to me. While the sun had hit the highest peaks by the time I got there, it had not quite worked its way down to these slabs, so I found some likely groups of glacial erratic boulders and various small trees and made some photographs. In this one, a single tree stands beyond a group of large boulders that had just been hit by the first light, and across a nearby canyon large granite walls are still in shadow.

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

Rocks, Surf, and Dusk Horizon

August 7, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A curving rock shelf extends into the “blue hour” Pacific Ocean surf and toward the fog-darkened horizon as night approaches.

A short, evening visit to the California coast above Santa Cruz began with photography in golden hour light in areas where the fog bank hung just offshore with moist air over the coast creating a gentle, misty atmosphere and soft light. We photographed a few subjects in this light – and looked at others that we did not stop to shoot – and continued north as the sun dropped toward the horizon, where the fog waited to envelop it. We stopped at a beach where large groups of pelicans were resting and then resuming their flight along the coast, and noted that there was still a bit of light in the sky and, oddly, below the bottom of the fog bank along the horizon. As this light died, we turned briefly north, and I soon saw this rocky bench extending into the ocean waves.

Following the evening golden hour there is a time that some call the blue hour – when the warmer colors of sunset drain from the sky and we are left with soft, blue light. It might have seemed odd to anyone watching me photograph this rocky feature, but instead of hurrying to shoot it before the light faded, I took my time – I wanted the light to fade, both for the mysterious blue coloration and because this would make it easier for me to use extended exposure times to allow the water to soften and blur a bit. When I began shooting it was only dark enough to get exposures of perhaps a second or two – at least without adding a neutral density filter – but as I waited, making an occasional photograph in the interim, the light began to move toward a near-night state, and I was able to get exposures of 15 seconds or longer… and that blue light that I was looking for.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Spring, Oaks, El Capitan Meadow

July 25, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Green grass and new oak leaves, El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite Valley

Probably almost anyone who has photographed in Yosemite Valley much can recognize this sort of scene and perhaps even think of some favorite spots to find black oak trees with new spring growth, set in meadows and backed by forest. Even though this is a very dry year in The Valley – and in almost all of California – around the beginning of May the annual “greening” of the Valley did take place, and this photograph was made during that period.

When lit from behind and above, the light coming through the new oak leaves is luminous and the colors can take on an intensity that sometimes cause me to describe this as the “impossibly green season” in California. Perhaps it is because the state is brown, tan, or gray during so much of the year that the spring green seems so intense.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: dark

Mushrooms, Redwood Forest

Boulders, Tree, and Dark Granite

Rocks, Surf, and Dusk Horizon

Spring, Oaks, El Capitan Meadow

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