Tag Archives: foliage

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Milkmaids Flowers, Redwood Forest

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Milkmaids Flowers, Redwood Forest

Milkmaids Flowers, Redwood Forest. Muir Woods National Monument, California. March 21, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Flowers of the milkmaid plant bloom on the forest floor beneath the redwoods, Muir Woods National Monument, California.

In a very dark section of the trail above the creek bottom at Muir Woods I found many, many flowers last weekend, including quite a few milkmaid flowers. These are a bit tricky to photograph – especially when a breeze is blowing! As the flowers wave in the moving air, in very dark conditions on the forest floor it is hard to avoid blowing out the brightest part of the flowers.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: Dentaria cardimine californica, milkmaids, flowers, plants, blossoms, blooms, bud, plant, foliage, leaf, fern, petal, four, stem, forest, grove, redwood, muir woods, national, monument, park, golden gate, national, recreation, area, marin county, spring, travel, scenic, nature, stock, california, usa

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Redwood Forest

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Redwood Forest

Redwood Forest. Muir Woods National Monument, California. March 21, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Towering trees in the redwood forest of Muir Woods National Monument, California.

This photograph was made very near to the site of the previously-posted photograph of a fern along the creek bank – I moved the tripod to the other side of the creek for this one. It features the wonderful diffused light coming through the overcast of an incoming storm and then being filtered through the canopy of the redwood forest.

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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: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Creekside Fern

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Creekside Fern

Creekside Fern. Muir Woods National Monument, California. March 21, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A lone fern plant grows on the bank of the creek in the redwood forest at Muir Woods National Monument, California.

I photographed this solitary fern against the background of the main Muir Woods creek flowing across a shallow section of rocky creek bottom. Sometimes I set myself a challenge of trying to find as many photographs as possible in one small area. I paused in this one spot for perhaps 15 minutes or longer, barely moving my tripod as I composed several photographs focusing on details of the surrounding scene. In addition to this fern, I made a series of photographs of new leaves on understory trees against a background of tall redwoods and I photographed the forest floor which was in places covered with redwood sorrel, ferns, and trillium.

(Added later:) Not sure how other photographers approach photographing in a place like this, but here is a bit about how I do it. I walk very slowly. I stop and look around. I make myself look up and down. I go through a sort of mental checklist of potential subjects: tree trunks, close ups of small features, critters, light, people, foliage/flowers, water, juxtapositions of forms and angles, and so on. I spend far more time looking than photographing – sometimes I may amble for a half hour or so at the start before I even take my camera out of the bag.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: creek, stream, brook, water, flow, ripple, wave, motion, blur, rocks, fern, leaf, plant, foliage, needles, branch, moss, bank, edge, green, growth, redwood, forest, grove, muir woods, national monument, california, usa, park, recreation, area, golden gate, travel, scenic, nature, landscape, stock

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Trillium, Flower and Stem

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Trillium, Flower and Stem

Trillium, Flower and Stem. Muir Woods National Monument, California. March 8, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A single trillium flower and leaves atop its slender stem in the redwood forest at Muir Woods National Monument, California.

I think I hit the peak of the “trillium season” when I visited Muir Woods near the beginning of March on a cloudy and damp late winter day on which the sun only occasionally broke through to light the forest floor. I probably spent an hour and a half photographing these flowers along a little section of trail that would usually take perhaps 10 minutes to hike – the flowers were everywhere. Some, like this one, were growing alone, while in other places there were small gardens of trillium flowers.

It may seem odd, but many of these close-ups of flowers were made using a 70-200mm zoom on a full-frame camera – no close-up lenses, no macro lens, and no close-up “filters.” The longer lens lets me work from a greater distance, simplifying tripod placement a lot, and also giving me a lot more flexibility in terms of composition. If there is are downsides to this approach they might include the potential for very narrow depth of field and the need to pay extra attention to camera stability. I used the “live view” feature to focus on many of these flowers. If the usual autofocus feature works I’ll use it, but sometimes it can be hard to get clean focus on these subjects. “Live view” on the Canon EOS 5D II raises the mirror and displays the image on the rear LCD. While the standard projected image can be useful for composition, it is not detailed enough for focusing. However, you can select a 10X zoom setting and see a very large and detailed image of the subject, and in this way you can do very precise manual focusing on any point in the frame.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: muir; woods; national; monument; park; marin county; nature; california; usa; winter; trillium; flower; blossom; white; yellow; leaf; stem; plant; foliage; forest; redwood; nature; spring; bokeh; travel; scenic; marin county; stock; bloom, golden gate, recreation