Spring trillium, redwood sorrel (Oregon oxalis), and ferns grow beneath the redwood trees at Muir Woods National Monument, California.
This past Saturday I visited Muir Woods National Monument – again! – to photograph the ongoing arrival of spring growth in the redwood forest. Following a few weeks of welcome rain and the recent start of spring, the plant life in the redwood forest is exploding everywhere. Here a lush patch of trillium, redwood sorrel (Oregon oxalis), and ferns grows right next to one of the main trails through the groves.
This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
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Morning light streams through a redwood grove to illuminate ferns on the sloping forest floor below at Muir Woods National Monument, California.
Yes, another photo of a redwood grove at Muir Woods National Monument. As I think I wrote earlier, I’m working on creating a collection of photographs of this location and obviously the trees themselves need to have a large place in all of this work. This is a bit different – really, trust me! – than some of the other recent redwood grove shots in that it was made during sunny conditions rather than the more gloomy (but no less interesting) rainiy and cloudy conditions I had photographed earlier.
And, yes, there will be more… :-)
This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
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Gentle light filters through overcast sky and the forest canopy to illuminate redwood trees of Muir Woods National Monument, California.
I saw this beautiful soft light on the trees from across the valley and quickly moved over here to photograph this scene last weekend. Although I exposed quite a few frames here and tried a few different compositions, the irony is that so far my favorite is this one, the first shot I did. The lighting was really interesting. A Pacific winter storm was just starting to come in and for the most part it was quite overcast. However, from time to time a thinner spot in the clouds would pass by and doubly-filtered and doubly-diffused light would hit these trees – filtering and diffused by the overcast and then again by the forest canopy.
This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
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Steps ascend a steep hill through the redwoods near the start of the Ocean View Trail, Muir Woods National Monument, California.
This is a scene that I have photographed before – in particular I recall photographing these steps early in the evening before one of the winter solstice events at Muir Woods, when the trails through the grove are lit by candles. On the last day of February this year I visited again, but this time very early in the morning before many other visitors had arrived. I was thinking “color” when I made this photograph (and I may still post the color version eventually) but I ended up liking this black and white version quite a bit. I like the diagonal division between the upper left half which mostly includes the vertical forms of the redwood trees and the lower right section which includes the steps leading in to the trees.
This was actually a somewhat tricky scene to photograph. While the dynamic range was quite huge, ranging from the deep shadows on the sides of the trees at the left to the almost sunlit foliage beyond the trees, overall the scene was quite dim. Because I needed great depth of field I shot at f/16. Because I wanted the cleanest image possible I shot at ISO 100. All of this meant that I ended up making a 2.5 second exposure! Still there were post-processing challenges, including bringing up a bit of detail in the darker areas of the scene while at the same time being careful to not increase the brightness in the bright spots. And after paying attention to the extremes some work had to be done on the middle tones to get some life back there.
This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.keywords: muir, woods, national, monument, park, marin, forest, nature, california, usa, steps, stairs, railing, fence, trail, ocean, view, redwood, grove, trees, ferns, clover, oregon oxalis, redwood sorrell, green, canopy, light, filtered, trunk, landscape, scenic, travel, outdoor, hike, stock
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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