Tag Archives: flora

Triteleia

Image May 6, 2019 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Triteleia flowers in bloom, Pinnacles National Park.

Recently I made a trip to Pinnacles National Park, located just east of California’s Salinas Valley. I have a very long history with this place, going back decades to my childhood visits when it was still a national monument. Back then the biggest attraction was “the caves…” which now don’t really interest me at all. In middle school I once rode a bicycle all the way down there in a small group, and we stayed in a campground on the east side of the park that is no longer a campground. (When it became a national park the camping was moved to another area that used to be outside the park boundaries.) In college I occasionally rock climbed there — an experience that included a bit of carelessness on my part that could have ended my life forty years ago.

This visit was a brief day trip, with some combination of hiking and photography as my goals. I arrived in the early morning, but not at the usual photographer’s pre-dawn hour, loaded up my pack with camera gear, and headed up the trail. My initial goal was some shaded canyons on the way to the small reservoir not far from the end of the road coming in from the east side, and my longer goal was to get up to the summit ridge of the “high peaks.” Along the way I hoped to be able to view and photograph the spring wildflower bloom that the park is known for, and I wasn’t disappointed. Although this season is heading toward its conclusion, and the green is rapidly heading toward brown, there were tons of flowers including these sprays of triteleia, or “pretty face,” flowers.

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

California Golden Poppy, Spring Grass

Image May 4, 2019 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A California golden poppy flower amidst a field of spring grass.

Everyone knows that the California Golden Poppy is this state’s “official flower.” I suppose there are two primary reasons. First, the flower’s name connects to California’s gold rush history. Second, these flowers are found all over the state, often in extraordinary abundance, especially during the spring following wet winters — which is just what we are experiencing this year. Visitors looking for these flowers often produce near-mob-scenes at some of the best-known locations. The good news is that you can find the flowers everywhere! I found this one in a place not far from my home where I often hike. But I could have found a fine poppy subject on a short neighborhood walk within five minutes of my home!

Perhaps to the surprise of many who try to photograph them, these flowers pose several distinct challenges — and that’s not counting the challenge of getting yourself down low enough on the ground to get up close. The color is so intense that it is easy to over-expose even when your camera tells you that you haven’t, and the result is blown-out loss of detail. (Hint: Underexpose a bit when photographing the poppies.) A second challenge is that the flowers close and night and only open in the morning when hit by sun — making it tricky to photograph them in the more manageable soft light. You could look for one in the shade… or you could make or carry your own shade, which is what I do. Third, the shape of the flower is a challenge, mainly in the depth-of-field realm. In many cases you want to throw the background out of focus in order to bring attention to the flower. However, because the flower doesn’t have a “flat” side, this tends to make parts of the flower out of focus, too. My solution here was to allow that to happen with the further petals, but to make the nearer, sharp petals the visual focus.

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Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Nature

Leaf

Image September 18, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A single leaf against a shadowed background

I photographed this remarkable leaf inside the conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden. The plants were phenomenal, but the conditions were not! It was terribly hot. The humidity was high, even for August in New York. And the light was limited… and I was shooting handheld. But the remarkable plant displays were too interesting to pass up, so I spent a bit of time photographing.

In these surroundings most of the photographs were, of necessity, close-ups, focusing on a few leaves or flowers and trying to exclude the background. (This was inside a building, and including the other visitors or the steel construction wasn’t what I had in mind.) Here the solitary curving green leaf was set off against a background of deep purple-brown leaves.

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

Overlapping Ferns

June 16, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Overlapping ferns grow close together in the springtime redwood forest

Late in the day, a bit early for golden hour but late enough to start thinking about it, I visited a short trail in Del Norte State Park, along which there was the promise of a few rhododendron blossoms and many, many redwood trees. It was an easy trail, gradually ascending and traversing a low ridge through the forest, and then beginning a descent that led to the beach. Since I was interested in the redwoods and not the beach, I stopped just past the beginning of the descent.

The lighting conditions were just about perfect — thin clouds muted and diffused the light, and it came into the forest from the west at a low angle, side-lighting the redwood trees. While I mostly was there to photograph big, obvious things like blooming rhododendrons and the redwood trees, this forest was full of smaller details, too. As I started back up the trail to return to where I started I saw some thick groups of ferns and I stopped to take a look. This little scene immediately caught my attention, with its nearly symmetrical layers of fern fronds leading down toward the forest floor.