Tag Archives: green

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Dogwood Blossoms, Forest

May 22, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A dogwood tree blooms in the forest of Yosemite Valley.

I have a feeling that I need to try a largish print of this one – there is so much detail in the scene that it is almost hard to make sense out of it in a small jpg. In the late afternoon I had wandered along the north edge of the Valley until I reached a point a bit east of the Ahwahnee Hotel. Having finished in this area, I headed around the hotel grounds and toward the Merced River and the former campground areas that were closed after the epic floods of a decade or so ago. This area is in some spots largely overgrown by thick, low plants and in some places I know that there are some good specimens of dogwood.

Although it was early in this year’s dogwood bloom cycle, I found a couple of very good trees in this area, and these two were almost completely in bloom. The forest here is quite dark and thick, and especially during the early evening time when I arrived this made the density of the vegetation seem even more impressive. The idea here was to fill the frame with flower-laden branches with the strong vertical lines of the forest trees behind, but also with detail everywhere in the frame.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Oak, Laurel, and Granite

May 21, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An oak tree and a laurel tree grow next to a granite face along the north side of Yosemite Valley, California.

I have visited this small, gnarled oak tree before. It grows right at the base of a granite face along the north side of Yosemite Valley, seems to face a pretty rugged life living beneath the shadow of the cliff and among fallen boulders. When I visited in early May the tree was just starting to get its new growth of leaves, though the laurel tree right next to it was already quite green.

The last time I photographed this tree it was autumn, and the leaves were also colorful then. It seems a bit odd that the leaves of this oak take on similar yellow and red colors at both the start and end of their season. (Though they do go more toward brown than yellow in the fall.)

The light was interesting on this day, which had started out clear. As the day wore on a weak Pacific weather front approached, and by evening things were pretty well socked in. But here, at perhaps 4:00 or 4:30, if I recall correctly, the incoming clouds were thing and broken enough to just soften the light without turning it completely gray.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Big Sur Coastline Near Soberanes Creek, Spring

May 19, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A sunny spring morning along the Big Sur Coast at Soberanes Creek, with fog above the coastal mountains.

This is a spot that is probably familiar to many who have driven down this section of the Big Sur coastline south of Monterey and Carmel, California. To the right, and out of the photograph, is Soberanes Canyon which ascends steeply toward the ridges above Pacific Ocean. A creek flows down the canyon, underneath the coast highway, and then into the ocean.

The foreground bluff looks inviting with its green color and spring flowers. However, I picked up one of the worst cases of poison oak I’ve had on one occasion when I walked across this meadow to photograph the sea stacks and coastline at dusk!

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Rocky Creek Bridge, Big Sur Coastline

May 18, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Bluff, cliffs, seastacks, and fog-shrouded coastal hills along the Big Sur coastline of California.

The bridge in the distance beneath the rounded, fog-topped hill is the Rocky Creek Bridge. (It is sometimes mistaken for the famous Bixby Bridge, which is a bit further south along the coast highway.) I’m very familiar with this area, having photographed from here many times. In fact, later on this morning I was up in the hills beyond the hilltop home while investigating a gravel road that heads back up into the mountains here.

I wanted to juxtapose a range of near and far bits of the bluffs above the shoreline cliffs in this scene. While the coastal meadows will turn brown very soon, on this mid-May date and in this relatively wet year they were still green. The coast highway travels along the upper part of the bluffs, often between the cliffs and the hills rising above. Beyond the bridge you can see the roadway rise to pass around another hill before descending toward the next creek to the south.

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