Tag Archives: green

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Beneath the Blooming Dogwood

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Beneath the Blooming Dogwood
Looking upwards toward dense spring dogwood flowers.

Beneath the Blooming Dogwood. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Looking up toward dense spring dogwood flowers.

Continuing with the spring dogwood theme, for this photograph and its sibling that I shared earlier, I came at the tree from a somewhat different perspective. Typically we photograph this subject so that we can view the flowers without a lot of interference. But here I placed myself where I could aim upwards and shoot through foliage.

Photographing this way fills the frame with light, and instead of the more typical top light,here the light glows down and through the leaves and flowers. On top of that the more distant canopy and flowers become soft and luminous as their focus fades.

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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Dogwood Flowers and Leaves

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Dogwood Flowers and Leaves
Spring dogwood tree blossoms nestled in a bed of green leaves.

Dogwood Flowers and Leaves. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Spring dogwood tree blossoms nestled in a bed of green leaves.

Let me begin by telling a story on myself, a story about looking for the perfect arrangement of dogwood leaves. When I first photographed them quite a while ago, I carried in my mind some incipient images of what I thought the photographs might look like. One of those images was derived from an Ansel Adams photograph of a spray of the flowers laid out in a lovely composition.

I would wander around Yosemite Valley and nearby locations looking for something that had the same quality. I wasn’t exactly trying to duplicate his photograph — just to see the blossoms in that way. But every arrangement was imperfect. The flowers didn’t line up correctly, there were gaps, something was distracting in the background. How did he find such a perfect arrangement? Well, I eventually learned, he did not “discover” it, he took flowers and arranged them by hand!

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 | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Green and Brown

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Green and Brown
A dry fallen leaf rests on lush green leaves on the forest floor.

Green and Brown. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

A dry fallen leaf rests on lush green leaves on the forest floor.

When I visit gardens to ostensibly photograph flowers, I inevitably find myself photographing other things — structures and objects, trees, fallen flowers, people, and ground plants growing in lush and shaded areas. The beautiful and very green leaves often seem like they would be easy to photograph, but I almost always realize that finding just the right arrangement can be challenging.

The stroke of luck here was finding this one light brown leaf lying atop the larger green leaves. This was spring, not autumn, and old, dry leaves are pretty rare. And, no, I did not put it there — I found it the way you see it.

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 | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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.

Photographs: Abstract

Serendipity

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Serendipity
A photograph of some colorful things.

Serendipity. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

A photograph of some colorful things.

This is just about color… unless you want to make it about something else. Such a photograph could be intentional (to the extent that photographs are “intentional” — read the second paragraph), but the level of serendipity in this one is high, hence the title.

There’s an odd idea that photographs are objective records — but that’s clearly not true. Even in cases where some sort of evidentiary standard is followed, decisions about aspects of what gets recorded and how it gets recorded are subjective. And beyond that limited use for photographs, once we get into the realm of images that are intended to express something, photographs are often far from objective records. One of my favorite expressions: “All photographs lie.” (I could refine that a bit, but there’s not space in this post.)

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 | Twitter | 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.