Tag Archives: flora

Photographs: Nature

Emerging Tulip

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Emerging Tulip
A blossoming pink tulip against a background of tulip greenery.

Emerging Tulip. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A blossoming pink tulip against a background of tulip greenery.

Today I’m taking a detour away from the recent and extensive series of photographs from Death Valley and heading about as far in another direction as possible! This is the first of a small group of photographs that I made on a recent morning when I accompanied Patty (our resident photographer of flowers and other small things) to a Bay Area garden where tulips and many other springtime things were sprouting. It is a bit of an odd spring here — it follows over two months of almost no rain, which is extremely rare for this season in Central California, and it feels like the peak spring season is going to be abbreviated.

This garden, in San Mateo County south of San Francisco, features formal plantings over and extensive area. From late winter through spring it seems like one thing after another comes into form here, and on this visit the tulips were the main show. Most of them are intensely colorful and growing in large groups, but I decided to try to focus on some of the less intensely colorful flowers and to set them against the background of green stems and leaves.

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: Germany, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Stolpersteine, Heidelberg

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Stolpersteine, Heidelberg
Sidewalk memorials to the memory of German Jews who were victims the Holocaust.

Stolpersteine, Heidelberg. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sidewalk memorials to the memory of German Jews who were victims the Holocaust.

This photograph has been sitting on my computer for several months now, and I have been debating when and how to post it. It isn’t “the usual thing” for me to post, but there you go. I’m not an expert on the Stolpersteine (wikipedia says “literally ‘stumbling stone,” metaphorically ‘stumbling block’.”) so I’m relying on some material I have found online plus some context provided to me by people I know who live in the areas where they are found. (You can read more about them here, including some of the controversies about their installation.) In front of homes, shops, all kinds of buildings you fine these plates indicating that “Here lived…” a specific person who was deported or killed in the Holocaust, thus de-anonymizing the effects of that horror and tying it closely to places where people seem to live normal lives today.

One reason I have been thinking about the Stolpersteine is that here in the US we have been engaging in a (sometimes absurd) debate about how to best recognize and come to terms with very difficult and awful parts of the history of our great country, in particular the enslavement of Africans and the long and ongoing oppression of people of color. An element of this has been the call to remove monuments to slavers and traitors who fought a war agains this country. The counter cry is “Don’t take our history away.” The history should, of course, remain and be readily visible and available. But glorifying the perpetrators of that history is another matter entirely. It might not be a bad idea to have our own version of the “stumbling stones,” perhaps marking the places where enslaved people were sold, where post-Civil War atrocities took place, and more.

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

Photographs: Nature

Bluedicks Flower

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Bluedicks Flower
Springtime bluedicks flower in the Central California oak-grasslands.

Bluedicks Flower. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Springtime bluedicks flower in the Central California oak-grasslands.

This is a surprisingly common wildflower in my part of California, and in the springtime I frequently run into them all around the Bay Area on hikes, typically in warmer and sunnier areas. The flowers are striking — the cluster sits on the end of a long, slender step, and the colors can stand out against the other foliage. Technically, I suppose that I should tie “flowers” rather than “flower” here, since it is a cluster of smaller individual flowers. The unusual name apparently comes from a shorthand for the Latin name of the plant, though I have recently been told that the plant has been reclassified and that it should now be “blue dips.”

Although I like to travel to do my outdoor photography, I also spend a lot of time in the field not far from where I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, often hiking some of the nearby trails. (In fact, I’ve been doing more of that recently as I try to work myself into condition for an upcoming backcountry trip by hiking hilly routes. It gets harder every year!) Although I had hiked the trails where I photographed this specimen, I had not really paid enough attention to the wildflowers there until recently… when I discovered several large populations of this flower.

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.

Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Redwood National & State Parks

Redwood Forest Floor Foliage

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Redwood Forest Floor Foliage
Broadleaf starflower and redwood sorrel in the deep shade of a Northern California redwood forest.

Redwood Forest Floor Foliage. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Broadleaf starflower and redwood sorrel in the deep shade of a Northern California redwood forest.

There is a route in Redwood National Park that surprises me — because there is hardly ever anyone there, even though it dead-ends in a beautiful forest of old growth trees near an intersection of several trails, in a place with many interesting things to see. I visit the spot every time I go there. Perhaps the small number of visitors is due to a lack of named icons, the out of the way location, and not a whole lot of publicity. My first visit was an accident — a moment of “I wonder what is up that way?”

The last time I was there it was midday, not necessarily the ideal time to photograph in the forest. The redwood forest is often quite a dark place, and little sun manages to find an angling path through the trees to reach the ground. But in the middle of the day the sun does make it to the forest floor, and the great contrasts between shadow and light are a challenge. On this visit there were scattered clouds passing above the forest, so I found my compositions and then waited patiently, eyeing the sky for the next cloud that might soften the light.

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 | 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.