Tag Archives: growth

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

White Globe Lily Flower and Grasses

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Chinese Lantern Flower and Grasses
White Globe Lily Flower and Grasses

White Globe Lily and Grasses. Almaden Quicksilver County Park, California. April 10, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A spring white globe lily flower blossoms among the seeds of new grass, Almaden Quicksilver County Park, California.

I’m posting this as a brief interlude in the steady stream of photographs from my late March visit to Death Valley. This photograph was obviously not made in Death Valley. (Yes, there are flowers there. No, not this one!)

Weather frustrated some of my photographic plans on the day that I made this photograph, so late in the day I decided to at least head out briefly and try to photograph some of the spring wildflowers that are blooming right now at one of my favorite local parks. There is a small valley not far from a trailhead at Almaden Quicksilver County Park that I know very well – I photograph there every spring when many, many wildflowers appear. For this little adventure I decided to go very light, taking only a camera body, one extension tube, and a 24-105mm zoom lens and planning to shoot hand held.

The sun was out when I left my home, but within five minutes it started raining! I was starting to think that photography just wasn’t going to be in the cards at all on this day, but I decided to keep driving anyway. The rain increased. The clouds above the hills where I was headed looked quite dark. But as I got closer I saw that this little shower was going to pass over and head to the east, and when I arrived there was broken sun.

I quickly walked to the small valley mentioned above, noticing the wonderfully green foliage in this area that is brown and dry during most of the year. As I started down the trail into the Valley I had a pretty good idea of what flowers to expect and where to look for them, since I know this spot very well. Thinking that it was still a bit early for these white globe lily flowers to be out, I looked for the plants instead, thinking that I’d be able to return later when the flowers were in bloom. But lower in the canyon I was surprised to find some of the flowers were already out and in bloom, including this specimen growing in a grassy area.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM (with extension tube) at 70mm
ISO 400, f/8, 1/100 second

keywords: chinese, lantern, flower, bud, blossom, bloom, plant, nature, grass, green, growth, new, leaf, san jose, santa clara, county, california, usa, north america, spring, white, almaden, quicksilver, park, stock

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Southern California

Eroded Terrain Near Natural Bridge Canyon

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Eroded Terrain Near Natural Bridge Canyon
Eroded Terrain Near Natural Bridge Canyon


Eroded Terrain Near Natural Bridge Canyon. Death Valley National Park, California. March 27, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Rugged and eroded terrain near the entrance to Natural Bridge Canyon in morning light at Death Valley National Park, California.

Natural Bridge Canyon is located at the foot of the Amargosa Range Black Hills just a short distance north of the popular Badwater area. As is typical of many of the canyon entrances in Death Valley, the approach is by leaving the main road paralleling the edge of the Valley and driving up a large alluvial fan on a gravel road towards the hills. The road ends and the canyon quickly narrows.

This photograph was made along this gravel approach road and shows a bit of the fan in the foreground, the cliffs alongside the was in the middle distance, and beyond that the convoluted and colorful strata of the lower section of the mountain range, here with low-angle back light from the morning sun coming from the other side of the mountains. This photograph also shows something that I found remarkable on this visit, namely the incredible profusion of plant life that was coming to live in the wake of some unusually heavy rain fall earlier in the season. During normal years and during most of the year even in wet years you’ll see almost no green at all on terrain like this aside from a few small and isolated bushes. But on this late-March visit there was plant life springing up everywhere. When I looked closely I could find a fringe of green almost everywhere. Here, not only is there obvious growth in the gravel of the wash at the bottom of the frame, but there is a fringe of green along the edges of the cliff and even in the far distance on the higher slopes.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM at 73mm
ISO 200, f/13, 1/40 second

keywords: death valley, national, park, california, usa, north america, scenic, travel, nature, desert, rugged, erosion, eroded, mountains, hill, cliff, gully, wash, pink, strata, layer, green, plant, growth, spring, rock, morning, light, natural, bridge, canyon, landscape, nature, stock, plants, rock, gravel, red, black, amargosa

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Oak Tree, Morning Light (monochrome)

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Oak Tree, Morning Light

Oak Tree, Morning Light. (Monochrome) Mission Peak. July 16,2006. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An oak tree along the trail to the top of Mission Peak, Fremont, California.

This photo has been in the queue for longer than I want to admit – all I’ll say is that it is more than a year! This spreading oak is found along a somewhat less-traveled section of trail near Mission Peak in the eastern SF Bay Area, and was photographed in early morning light.

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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keywords: oak, tree, trunk, branch, leaf, canopy, leaves, grass, morning, light, shade, shadow, summer, trail, mission, peak, east, bay, park, trail, hike, nature, rock, boulder, thick, growth, vegetation, flora, san francisco, area, california, usa, black and white, stock, landscape

Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Redwood Trees and Ferns

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Redwood Trees and Ferns

Redwood Trees and Ferns. Muir Woods National Monument, California. August 19, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A group of closely-spaced redwood trees grows above ground-hugging ferns with green trees behind, Muir Woods National Monument, California.

In mid-August I visited Muir Woods (only a 90 minute drive from my home) to drop off some photographs and spend some time making new ones. I always arrive there very early – the crowds are otherwise overwhelming, especially in the summer – and when I got there almost no one else had yet entered the park. Because it was a morning with high fog, I was looking forward to shooting plants in the diffuse light that creates such wonderful saturated colors.

I wandered up and around the usual short loop that would be very busy in a few hours, but there were only a few other people there. Near the end of my wandering, as I was almost ready to exit, the fog began to thin just a bit and as I passed this group of trees there was enough light to better define their forms and texture.

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.

Web: G Dan Mitchell Photography
Twitter: http://twitter.com/gdanmitchell
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keywords: redwood, sequoia, sempervirens, coast, giant, tree, forest, grove, muir, woods, national, monument, golden, gate, recreation, area, park, tall, vertical, trunk, burn, scar, fern, flora, laurel, bark, texture, branch, morning, light, filtered, fog, san francisco, california, usa, scenic, travel, landscape, nature, natural, growth, lush, stock