Tag Archives: garden

Photographs: Nature

Green Stems

Image Leave a comment
Green Stems
Green stems of new bulbs crowd together.

Green Stems. © Copyright 2022.G Dan Mitchell.

Green stems of new bulbs crowd together.

Recently I read an article about painter Richard Diebenkorn, whose work I have admired for years. The reviewer was commenting on the relationship between the depiction of the “real” landscape and seeing the subject as something else entirely. He commented, more or less, that these paintings of real subjects aspire to abstraction. That’s an idea that I can relate to — and I know that I’m not the only photographer who thinks this way.

I made this photograph during a morning visit to a Bay Area garden, where we had gone to see the first “spring” blooms. (Technically, it was still late winter, but it sure felt like spring that day.) The flowers were beautiful and impressive. But my attention wanders, and I end up photographing a lot of other things, too. These stems caught my attention with their color and form, especially in softer light in the shade of some trees. So I crouched down (very!) low and photographed in such a way that the stems but not the flowers would be in the photograph.

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.

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.

Photographs: Nature

Succulent Leaves, Detail

Image Leave a comment
Succulent Leaves, Detail
Close up view of the patterns of succulent plant leaf edges.

Succulent Leaves, Detail. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Close up view of the patterns of succulent plant leaf edges.

Any time I end up in some sort of garden I seem to end up making at least a few photographs of the plants, often focusing on the shapes, lines, curves, textures and colors. In other words, most often I don’t make photographs that really show the plants in a botanically useful way, instead preferring to see them as essentially abstractions. One advantage of this approach, at least from my point of view, is that I don’t feel particularly limited to presenting an objectively accurate rendition of the subject, and I can instead choose to “see” the subject almost any way I want.

If I recall correctly, I made this photograph during a visit to Northern California a couple of years ago — the last time we visited the state and national redwood parks up there prior to this year. We stopped along the way up there and spent a night or two not far from Fort Bragg, where there is a lovely botanical garden. We took time out from the landscape photography to spend a few hours wandering there — mostly bent over close to the ground to photograph small things!

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.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

Photographs: Nature

Right Angle Leaves

Image Leave a comment
Right Angle Leaves
A plant with a pattern of successive leaves growing at right angles to one another.

Right Angle Leaves. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A plant with a pattern of successive leaves growing at right angles to one another.

Two years ago we made a trip up the California coast, with our ultimate goal being the redwood parks in the far northern corner of the state. Our primary goal was photography — redwood trees, the coast, rhododendron blooms — but we also regarded this trip as a bit of a vacation. With that in mind we split the northward drive into two parts, and spent a couple of days largely hanging out in the town of Mendocino. We did a bit of photography, but we also did a bit of restaurant dining and other touristy things.

The town of Fort Bragg is just up the coast from here, and it turns out that there is an extensive botanical garden there — it rivals and surpasses those of many larger urban centers. So we spent part of a day wandering the grounds and photographing flowers and plants, including this specimen. In the soft shadow light the yellow to green colors and the fascinating geometries of the plant are easily visible.

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.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

Photographs: Nature

Patterns in Green

Image Leave a comment
Patterns in Green
The stalk of a plant at a formal garden.

Patterns in Green. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The stalk of a plant at a formal garden.

First of all, about the sort of vague title for this photograph… I do tend to use titles for some photographs, particularly landscapes and wildlife, that don’t give away too much information about the subject. I have my reasons. For one thing, I think that the photograph should be free to speak to the viewer visually, mostly on its own merits and without telling the viewer what to think. For another, in some cases it is better to not focus people’s attention too much of the specific location, particularly if that might distract them from the visual value of the photograph and double-particularly if the location is one that might be at risk of damage if too many people went looking for it.

However, none of those noble — or so I tell myself — considerations are at work here. The truth is… I have no idea what kind of plant this is. I don’t even recall specifically the act of making the photograph, though I do know that it was during a visit to a garden that we went to order to photograph flowers and plants. (At about this point, someone will know what kind of plant it is and write to let me know. I’m counting on you! :-)

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.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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