Tag Archives: gree

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Acanthus Leaves and Stem

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Acanthus Leaves and Stem
Macro photograph of leaves and stem.

Acanthus Leaves and Stem. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Macro photograph of leaves and stem.

These plants were abundant in a public garden we visited back at the end of spring. Remember spring? Back when California was still green, and before our summer golden brown arrived? That aside, in this San Francisco Peninsula garden something is always green no matter what the season.

Most of my photography on this visit focused on flowers, but here it is more about the plant itself — sturdy stem with thick leaves growing upwards and with thorn-like appendages along their edges. The faint purple coloration at the edges of the leaves sets of the bright green.

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: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: New England

Autumn Trees, New Hampshire

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Autumn Trees, New Hampshire
A dense wall of trees with autumn leaves, New Hampshire.

Autumn Trees, New Hampshire. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A dense wall of trees with autumn leaves, New Hampshire.

This vignette of one small bit of White Mountains autumn color is somewhat indicative of the intensity and variety of the color there. My baseline for considering autumn color is California, which means the aspens (and a few other things) of the Eastern Sierra, the maples and oaks and dogwoods of the west slope of the range, and the mixture of native and non-native trees another areas of the state. It is rare to fine large, continuous hardwood forests with a mix of trees in California — almost unheard of, in fact. Yet that seems to be the norm in New Hampshire and other parts of New England we visited. It seems like the period of time with best color may be shorter here, but during the window the variety and intensity is remarkable.

The circumstances of the photography often seemed different in New England, too. (In fairness, this was my first visit, and I can see how my process might adapt to this different landscape over time.) Once I found color in New Hampshire — and, believe me, it was not hard! — in some cases photographing it was almost too easy. Here, for example, I had stopped at a popular roadside pull-out to photograph an open landscape view to the north. When that view turned out to be problematic I turned around and basically looked for colors and patterns to photograph in a large “tree wall” across the roadway!

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.

Commentary, Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

,Autumn Aspens, Cliff

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Autumn Aspens, Cliff
Autumn aspen trees cling to ledges along the face of a cliff in the Eastern Sierra Nevada

Autumn Aspens, Cliff. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Autumn aspen trees cling to ledges along the face of a cliff in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

The aspens in this photograph have fascinated me for years. Nearby are some relatively large, tall, and straight trees, but for the most part the trees in this scene are small, slender, and sometimes even a bit misshapen. They manage to eke out a living on what appears to be solid rock as they send their roots into narrow cracks.

These trees seem to have, at least in my experience, a fairly short period of maximum color. Or at least that is what I tell myself when looking to explain why I have somehow almost always missed their best color. But it also appears that they change colors earlier than some of the other trees in the area — I made this photograph just past the middle of September, nearly two weeks before the typical start of the more widespread fall color season in the Sierra.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Visual Puzzle with Tree

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Visual Puzzle with Tree - A tree with early spring greenery against a backdrop of the reflecting windows of downtown San Francisco buildings.
A tree with early spring greenery against a backdrop of the reflecting windows of downtown San Francisco buildings.

Visual Puzzle with Tree. San Francisco, California. April 20, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A tree with early spring greenery against a backdrop of the reflecting windows of downtown San Francisco buildings.

On a mid-April walk though portions of downtown San Francisco to make photographs, while passing through the financial district I was these branches with new spring leaves juxtaposed with a conjunction of building angles, reflected and distorted light, and colors that created a wild abstraction.

The urban environment often holds visual attractions that are not always immediately scene and which sometimes require one to look past the more obvious grit and turmoil. (Those, too, can be a photographic subject… but not this time.) In downtown concrete canyons with glass covered buildings, there is a constantly varying world of wild distortions and conjunctions and perspectives. If you think about it, very little of what you think you see in this photograph is really  “there.” The thing the fills the largest portion of the frame is a crazily distorted reflection of other building and sky, fractured and bent by the distortions from the glass – in essence you don’t really see this building at all!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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.