Tag Archives: green

Photographs: Urban/Street

Exit Only

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Exit Only
An “exit only” sign attached to a wall that has not been painted recently.

Exit Only. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An “exit only” sign attached to a wall that has not been painted recently.

Postcard from Pandemic #2. I made this photograph on one of my SIP neighborhood walks a few weeks ago. If nothing else, the current travel restrictions are encouraging me to discover nearby things that I had not paid attention to before.

This wall is in the back of an urban business district. I’ve been around this area for decades, and I have watched it change a lot — from a quiet residential business district, to a place of fading and dying businesses, to a newly popular, somewhat upscale area with lots of restaurants and other signs of Silicon Valley wealth. For someone who has been here for a while and who recalls what was in this location in the past, this wall is a bit of a historical record.

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.

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Photographs: Nature

Fairy Lanterns, Spring

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Fairy Lanterns, Spring
A cluster of spring fairy lantern wildflowers.

Fairy Lanterns, Spring. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A cluster of spring fairy lantern wildflowers.

These are among my favorite spring wildflowers here in my part of the world — the San Francisco Bay Area. The photograph is from last spring, as this year my opportunities to go out and photograph wildflowers have been much more limited. I did photograph flowers like these at the very beginning of their cycle, when they were still mostly buds and before the social lock-down commenced. Even when the rules were relaxed to allow hikes, the location of these flowers is one in which social distancing could be difficult to maintain.

I photographed this little group of flowers at a local spot where I first “discovered” this kind of flower over a decade ago. Oddly perhaps, given that I’ve hiked in these hills for decades, I was unaware of the fairy lantern flowers and surprised to see them. These grow a long a narrow and somewhat steep trail that heads through a narrow ravined, a place that is often in shade but with a bit of sunlight each day.

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.

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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.

Photographs: Nature

Milkmaids Blossoms

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Milkmaids Blossoms
Milkmaids wildflower spring blossoms, California.

Milkmaids Blossoms. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Milkmaids wildflower spring blossoms, California.

While I never have been very good at keeping track of the names of various California wildflowers, I look forward to them each spring. And despite my inability to remember what to call them, I generally know where and when I will find them, and I usually recognize the plants even when the flowers are not present.

There are a few local places I go to find them. These spots are not what anyone else would regard as being special during most of the year — a segment of a trail most folks follow for exercise, a lonely hilltop in a county park, a narrow place in a little canyon I know. These flowers are from one of this places, a little canyon in a county park where I’ve hiked for years.

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.

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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

Spring Bloom, Valley and Mountains

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Spring Bloom, Valley and Mountains
Morning fog thins above a landsape of spring wildflowers stretching from valley to mountaintops.

Spring Bloom, Valley and Mountains. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning fog thins above a landsape of spring wildflowers stretching from valley to mountaintops.

As I continue to mine the archives of raw files from 2019 during these “shelter in place” days of 2020, here is another photograph from about this time in 2019, when I was traveling around California to enjoy and photograph a rather remarkable spring bloom. After abundant Winter and early Spring rain, the landscape was coming to life in spectacular fashion.

To make this photograph I headed out into the center of this plain — actually more of a very wide valley between two mountain ranges. Here the flowers grew in patches of similar colors — orange here, purple there, and yellow almost everywhere. The carpet of colorful wildflowers spread across the plain, up into the foothills, and extended almost to the summit if these distant mountains.

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.

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.