Tag Archives: leaves

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Dry Corn Lily Plants, Autumn

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Dry Corn Lily Plants, Autumn
A bed of fallen and dry autumn corn lily plants, Yosemite National Park.

Dry Corn Lily Plants, Autumn. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A bed of fallen and dry autumn corn lily plants, Yosemite National Park.

The corn lily is one of my favorite Sierra plants. It tends to grow in meadowy, wet areas that are often particularly lush — and thus bug infested— in the early season. I think it is an attractive plant at almost any point in its annual life-cycle. It emerges as the green shoot as meadows come back to life early in the season, and before long the intense and lush bright green plants stand tall. But this state of perfection doesn’t last long, and soon blemishes appear — dark spots, holes, and eventually yellow areas as the end of the summer season draws near. (I’ve long thought of this change as the first sign of the coming Sierra autumn season.) Eventually the plants dry out, fall over, and when everything works out just right the form small carpets of brown and yellow and tan and fading green.

The corn lily is a favorite of photographers, most often photographed during that earlier lush, green stage. (It often seems like photographing such a beautiful plant would be easy, but once I start looking for the perfect conjunction of leaf shapes it inevitably becomes more difficult than I expected. )

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

Leaves in Rain

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Leaves in Rain, Portland
“Leaves in Rain” — Leaves in rain, Portland, Oregon.

Californians have been dealing with strange weather patterns for more than a decade now — a five-year drought, a few years of way above average rainfall, and then the current season that has been almost completely rainless up until now. As I write this the pendulum is apparently about the swing the other direction, and the forecasts for my part of the state predict an “atmospheric river” storm later this week that has the potential to bring absurd amounts of rain over the course of a few days. It seems to be feast or famine, though the amount of recent rain famine has been the biggest concern.

While this photograph is evocative of the weather we’re about to have, it comes from a naturally wetter place a few hundred miles to the north, namely Portland, Oregon. On a spring visit a few years back we ended up in one of that cities urban parks on a cloudy and wet day, and as we wandered though gardens I stopped to photograph these leaves.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

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Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Nature

Succulent Leaves

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Succulent Leaves
Patterns formed by the bright edges of succulent leaves.

Succulent Leaves. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Patterns formed by the bright edges of succulent leaves.

This image comes from 2013, and was made in a sort of off-hand manner on a family visit to San Diego. (Off the top of my head, I can’t actually recall exactly where I photographed it, though it may have been at Balboa Park.) Indeed, it is another photograph that emerges from my pandemic review of my archives of old raw files.

Photographs like this one are both fun and challenging, at least in my experience. Like many photographers, I’m intrigued by forms, shapes, curves as abstract things, and they often underly photographs that seem to be about more obvious content. The opportunity to work with subjects where these elements of shape are almost the entirely of the image is hard to resist. It also almost always (again in my personal experience) turns out to be harder than I think it will be. More often than not, when I first see such a subject I am certain that it will work… but as I begin to actually make the image small things interfere with what I’m looking for. In this case, I do like the result, and I enjoy trying to see the pattern of the bright leaf edges as their own abstract form.

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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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Nature

Autumn Weeds

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Autumn Weeds
Colorful autumn weeds with morning frost, Central Valley.

Autumn Weeds. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Colorful autumn weeds with morning frost, Central Valley.

Yes, weeds. I had spent a few hours photographing more exalted subjects — migratory birds, foggy sunrise skies, big vistas, fall colors. Eventually it was time for a break, so I pulled into a parking area, poured a cup of coffee from my thermos and grabbed a snack. It was a very cold morning, so I stood along the sunny side of my vehicle, enjoying the slight warmth of the morning sun. And at my feet, right there in the parking lot, next to a fence, I saw some colorful, frost-rimmed… weeds.

As you would expect, I put down the coffee, grabbed a camera, and set about photographing the… weeds. I’m often reminded of something that another photographer once wrote: “There’s always something to see!” Those words, which seem pretty banal when considered from a non-photographic perspective, turn out to be pretty important. No matter where you are, there is, indeed, virtually always “something to see.”

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.