Tag Archives: dogwood

Two Walkers, Dogwood Tree

Two walkers pass a flowering dogwood tree in Central Park.

Two Walkers, Dogwood Tree. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Two walkers pass a flowering dogwood tree in Central Park.

Photos are temporarily being shared without additional commentary. Watch for commentary to resume in late summer.


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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Sea of Dogwood Blossoms

Sea of Dogwood Blossoms
A dense expanse of spring dogwood blossoms.

Sea of Dogwood Blossoms. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

A dense expanse of spring dogwood blossoms.

This amazingly thick mass of dogwood blooms comes from a tree I mentioned in an earlier post. We had gone to a location where we sometimes photograph dogwoods (and many other things), but we knew that the trees we usually look for would have almost completely dropped their blossoms by now. However, to our surprise and pleasure, there was a tree that we did not know about, and it had more dogwood blossoms than any tree I’ve seen before.

The light was extremely soft due to the late hour. I would usually photograph smaller groups of flowers or even individual blossoms, typically in a more straight-on fashion. But these branches were at eye level and higher, so I decided to photograph across them and show their extent.


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

Beneath the Blooming Dogwood

Beneath the Blooming Dogwood
Looking upwards toward dense spring dogwood flowers.

Beneath the Blooming Dogwood. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Looking up toward dense spring dogwood flowers.

Continuing with the spring dogwood theme, for this photograph and its sibling that I shared earlier, I came at the tree from a somewhat different perspective. Typically we photograph this subject so that we can view the flowers without a lot of interference. But here I placed myself where I could aim upwards and shoot through foliage.

Photographing this way fills the frame with light, and instead of the more typical top light,here the light glows down and through the leaves and flowers. On top of that the more distant canopy and flowers become soft and luminous as their focus fades.


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 | FacebookEmail

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.

Dogwood Flowers and Leaves

Dogwood Flowers and Leaves
Spring dogwood tree blossoms nestled in a bed of green leaves.

Dogwood Flowers and Leaves. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Spring dogwood tree blossoms nestled in a bed of green leaves.

Let me begin by telling a story on myself, a story about looking for the perfect arrangement of dogwood leaves. When I first photographed them quite a while ago, I carried in my mind some incipient images of what I thought the photographs might look like. One of those images was derived from an Ansel Adams photograph of a spray of the flowers laid out in a lovely composition.

I would wander around Yosemite Valley and nearby locations looking for something that had the same quality. I wasn’t exactly trying to duplicate his photograph — just to see the blossoms in that way. But every arrangement was imperfect. The flowers didn’t line up correctly, there were gaps, something was distracting in the background. How did he find such a perfect arrangement? Well, I eventually learned, he did not “discover” it, he took flowers and arranged them by hand!


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 | FacebookEmail

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.