Tag Archives: leaf

Photographs: Nature

Leaf Edges

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Leaf Edges
Leaf edges with thorns in the shape of small waves.

Leaf Edges. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Leaf edges with thorns in the shape of small waves.

Few of us seem to be able to resist photographing thick leaves like these, particularly when they overlap in such graphically interesting ways, presenting a contrast between dark shadows and the bright spines on the edges of the leaves. I know I can’t resist, and almost any time I find myself in a garden I end up pointing the camera at such things, even when photography is not my primary reason for visiting.

My first instinct with a subject like this one is frequently to go straight to monochrome. I’m not sure if that is because I feel that removing color may focus attention on the graphical forms or simply because the earliest photographs in this genre that I saw were monochromatic. Here I went the opposite direction, keeping and even amping up the intensity of the colors a bit, warming the shadow light as well.

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

Nightmare Plant

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Nightmare Plant
A colorful succulent plant covered with tooth-like thorns.

Nightmare Plant. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A colorful succulent plant covered with tooth-like thorns.

OK, maybe I took some liberty with the name of this plant. I actually do not know what it is. (I’ll gladly accept identification help.) I think I photographed it during a visit to a particular botanical garden, though the details probably are not important. What is important is that… I really don’t want to run into a gigantic version of this plant in the middle of a very dark night!

Photographing plants is not my main thing, but at times I do find them very interesting — whether just because they happen to be beautiful or because they possess a strangeness that we usually overlook. In many cases they present remarkable graphical subjects, full of textures, colors, angles and more. They also are almost everywhere — so if you are thinking, “I can’t get away to make photographs…” maybe you can just look around and find something close by.

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 | 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, Photographs: Nature

Leaf

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Leaf
A single leaf against a shadowed background

Leaf. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A single leaf against a shadowed background

I photographed this remarkable leaf inside the conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden. The plants were phenomenal, but the conditions were not! It was terribly hot. The humidity was high, even for August in New York. And the light was limited… and I was shooting handheld. But the remarkable plant displays were too interesting to pass up, so I spent a bit of time photographing.

In these surroundings most of the photographs were, of necessity, close-ups, focusing on a few leaves or flowers and trying to exclude the background. (This was inside a building, and including the other visitors or the steel construction wasn’t what I had in mind.) Here the solitary curving green leaf was set off against a background of deep purple-brown leaves.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Spring Forest

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Spring Forest
Dogwood trees begin to leaf out in a dense Yosemite Valley forest

Spring Forest. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dogwood trees begin to leaf out in a dense Yosemite Valley forest

Following a string of wintry photographs from Yosemite, today’s photograph reflects the early signs of spring. I made the photograph on one if this year’s visits, and the visit that most clearly demonstrated the wild variations in conditions that can occur during this transitional season. A day before I had photographed new snow, including an actual snow storm on the first day of my visit. Now, only a short time later, I found myself making photographs that included no obvious signs of winter and quite a few signs of spring!

The very dense section of forest is not the most typical sight in much of the Sierra, where forests are often more dry and open — especially so where natural effects of fire have periodically cleared out the undergrowth. Here a mostly-conifer forest is interrupted by lots of dogwood trees, and on the day I was there the dogwoods were just barely starting to show their first spring buds, with a few of them starting to open into leaves. It was a bit later in the morning, so gently backlight was filtering down through the trees.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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 | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.