Tag Archives: grove

Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Redwood National & State Parks

Redwood Forest Trail

June 13, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A quiet trail though old-growth redwood groves.

One of my loose goals on this trip to the Redwood National and State Parks was to scout a bit. This was such a new area to me that I did not have illusions about finding the very best subjects right away, and I regard a first visit like this one as being the start of a longer photographic relationship with the place. In other words, I wanted to photographer then and there, but I also wanted to start to know the place, with an eye to future return visits.

With that in mind I visited four of the parks that comprise the larger state and national park collective. Time will tell if my initial impressions are correct, but each park seems to have a different and somewhat individual character. My last stop in the area, on the morning when I began my drive to a locations further south, was the Prairie Creek State Park. The great old-growth redwood trees are impressive wherever you find them, but it seemed to me that here they were even more so. After photographing some alder trees along a roadway, I moved on and selected a trail to hike, making the choice based more on hunch than anything else. I wandered slowly up a canyon filled with the giant trees as broken clouds moved changing light across the scene.

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Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Redwood National & State Parks

Redwood and Rhododendron

June 9, 2018 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A curving rhododendron with a few spring blooms in dense North Coast redwood forest

I mentioned earlier that this was probably my first “serious” trip to photograph the redwood forests in the Redwood National and State Parks are of far-northern California. When I travel to a new location like this I tend to do only enough research to point me in the right direction. For example, I checked maps and I figured out that there are four main parks, and I looked up a hike or two. But I did not, and I generally do not, do extensive research and planning. For me a big part of the adventure is the discovery part, where I poke around, use my instincts, make mistakes, and take interesting turns… and see what develops. There is a method to my madness — I think this helps me more quickly develop a person orientation to the place.

So on this morning I headed to the closest park, Jedediah Smith State Park. I found what looked like it might be a road through the park. It was. Sort of. It turned into gravel and then came to a locked gate just past the park entrance. So I backed up, retreated, and tried going around the park to the other side. Eventually I found a nice hike of a few miles to a big grove of old-growth trees, but first I came across this beautiful little spot where there were a few rhododendrons just beginning to bloom.

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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: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Quiet Forest

May 22, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A quiet and unremarkable forest scene in a peaceful corner of Yosemite Valley

There are a few things about photography that we don’t often talk about too much. One of them is the fact that some days simply don’t bring remarkable light and conditions. Exceptional conditions are… exceptional. You increase your chances of photographing them if you are out there a lot, but this means that you also increase the chances that you’ll have some days when things seem a bit… dull. This was one of those days. Actually, it had been better earlier in the day and it promised to be good later on, but at the time of day when I made this photograph the light was somewhat “blah.”

So I strapped on my pack, grabbed my tripod, and went for a slow, lazy hike in an area that didn’t feature any particularly distinguishing iconic subjects. It was actually a wonderful walk. Having given up on the idea of finding brilliant light, the pressure was off, and I was free to wander slowly, looking around and going wherever it seemed interesting. At one point I crossed a bridge and decided to follow a little trail into forest along the shores of a river. A ways up that trail I though that rocks and trees off to one side looked interesting, so I left the trail and wandered off that direction, finally stopping to photograph some interesting tree bark patterns. Once I was set up it made sense to look around a bit, and I soon spotted this little scene with a path, some trees, and a large boulder.

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

Small Aspen Trees, Autumn

May 13, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A tightly spaced grove of small Eastern Sierra aspen trees with fall color

I like to say that it is never too soon to start thinking about fall color… though I forgive you if you aren’t sure that May is quite yet the right time. To be honest, I came across this photograph of a familiar subject earlier today while I was backtracking through my archive of older raw files. I have a bunch of urban/street photographs queued up for posting here soon, but I feel like sharing a few more natural photographs first.

The location is in a popular area for Eastern Sierra Nevada fall color, but there is nothing exactly iconic about this particular grove – though it is a place that I’ve returned to every fall for years. I suspect that something about it caught my attention on my first visit, and that whatever that “something” is, it is not a feature that every viewer will spot. I recall stopping here the first time I visited. It was late in the day and the sun was about to drop behind the surrounding high ridges. I was surprised to see this densely spaced grove of slender trees, with trunks exposed below their fall color crowns. I stopped and made a few photographs, and the spot has become one of my touchstones in the Sierra Nevada.

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G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: grove

Redwood Forest Trail

Redwood and Rhododendron

Quiet Forest

Small Aspen Trees, Autumn

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.