An emerging daylily flower in the Commemorative Garden at the Gene and Irene Wockner Hospice Center.
I’m posting today with little additional commentary. This photograph was made at the beginning of August during a quiet hour-long walk in the garden of the Wockner Hospice in Kirkland, Washington, where there was a large bed of these flowers in a shady area.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Daylily blossoms in the Commemorative Garden at the Gene and Irene Wockner Hospice Center.
This is another photograph of the bed of daylily blooms in the Commemorative Garden at the Wockner Hospice in Kirkland, Washington. I was thinking this morning about why it is that these particular flowers ended up being my main subject during the brief “photo walk” I took through the garden, and I realized that one main reason was that they were in the shade! When I photographed in the late afternoon, much of the garden was in full or partial sun – not great conditions for photographing the forms of flowers. But this area of the garden was shaded behind tall trees, leaving me with much softer light to work with. In addition, both the colors and shapes of these flowers are fascinating, especially here where a group of them ended up all slanting across the frame in much the same way. The flowers are also quite varied. As I understand it, the name “daylily” refers to the short life of the flowers in their prime, as in “they only last a day.” Consequently, while there are many flowers they are at various different stages of development: the small and tightly formed buds, the longer shapes just before they open, the fully opened and most colorful forms, and then various stages of “decay” as they turn beautiful, darker colors and shrivel up.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Day lilies growing in the Commemorative Garden at the Gene and Irene Wockner Hospice Center, Kirkland, Washington.
Thanks to the several people who have told me that these are almost certainly daylilies. (I originally used two words, “day lilies,” to title this and I’m going to leave the title that way for now.) I’ve also been told that the name reflects the short blooming period of the individual flowers, which might remain in full color for only a “day.” While I did not know the name of the flowers, I certainly could tell that the blooms did not last long. In fact, in this photograph, the buds of incipient flowers are visible above and to the right of the main flower, and one that has already run its course is near the top of the bright red and yellow flower.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Downtown buildings of San Francisco, California stand beneath a winter sky at dusk.
On New Year’s Day 2012, we joined a group of “photo walkers” who were shooting some of the old military structures high in the Marin Headlands area across the Golden Gate and north of San Francisco. After meeting up with all of them and photographing these interesting old sites, we left them as they went off to photograph Rodeo Beach. (We realized that we would need to get back home a bit earlier since my plan was to leave for six days in Death Valley the next morning… and I had not yet packed!)
Since we were already in the area, we took a quick detour up to the Hawk Hill area high on Conzelman Road to check out that famous view across the Golden Gate Bridge toward San Francisco and points beyond. I don’t go here every time I’m in the area, but if I’m already there, it is about to be sunset, I have an extra half hour, and there is the potential for interesting light… what the heck! Once we got there I noticed that some winter haze was distinctly softening the light as the sun was just about to set, and this created a beautiful glowing gradient of colors in the sky and washed the City in pastel light. In this photograph I resisted the temptation to pump things (contrast and saturation) a lot, and intend tried to maintain the subtle coloration of the scene.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
