Tag Archives: license

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

Trillium Flowers, Redwood Forest

March 8, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Trillium flowers bloom beneath the redwood forest, Northern California.

This is another in what is likely to be a series of photographs of trillium blooms in the redwood forest just north of San Francisco. On this morning I arrived before the crowds that often come across the Golden Gate to visit this nearby forest, and I walked into the redwood groves while there was still a relatively small number of people. Despite this being a very dry winter, some recent rains had moistened things up a bit and there was a fair amount of water around – and it almost seemed like plants that had been waiting for water were now making up for lost time.

At first I didn’t see too many trillium plants or flowers, but as I walked I began to come across more of them. A hike on a side-trail that traversed a hillside brought me to many more flowers, and in a few places they were thick enough and close enough together that I could include groups of them in the frame. Here I put on a very wide angle lens, and shot from a very close distance at a large aperture so that I could include this row of flowers and throw the background of the forest floor out of focus.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Trillium Plant and Flower

March 6, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A trillium plant blooms during late winter in the redwood forest at Muir Woods National Monument.

I somehow missed the trillium bloom in the Northern California redwood forests last year, so this year I was determined to make it back again at the right time. (That time is essentially the first week or so on March.) Since I had plans to be out and about doing night photography later in the day, I decided to start early and head to redwood forests north of San Francisco to see what I could find. I was a bit concerned since it has been quite a dry winter in California.

Fortunately, it seems that a few recent light rains have been enough to get the early spring growth going. Where a week or two ago almost everything was brown, this week there were signs of green grasses and some wildflowers starting to appear. While the redwood forest was not a downright soggy as it usually is at the beginning of March, it was wet enough to start a few small streams flowing. At first I did not see as many trillium and other seasonal plants as I hoped to see, but then I noticed a couple of things. First, some plants seem like they may be on a slightly delayed schedule this year. Second, as I continued to walk and look more carefully I was able to find quite a few of these trillium flowers.

A bit of advice if you try to photograph trillium plants and flowers… The blooms seem to come and go rather quickly, so don’t delay if you are looking to photograph them or you’ll find only the triple leaf plants and no flowers. The floor of the redwood forest is a “busy” place, with lots of different plants and the textures of dead and fallen plant material. Photographing flowers against this background takes a bit of care or the flowers will be lost against the complex backdrop. Shooting rather early or late, when little direct sunlight makes it to down through the trees is a good idea – the light in the shadows is softer and less harsh and you can use large apertures to blur the background.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Birds, Trees, Ponds – California Central Valley

March 5, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Migratory birds fly over a group of trees at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge as others congregate in a pond.

In my continuing mission to share as many photographs of this little grove of trees in as many ways as possible, I now present – The Trees In Black and White… ;-) I have shot this little group on two successive weeks now, and I’m starting to almost regard them as personal friends. They are located out along the “auto tour” route at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge in California’s Central Valley. From certain angles late in the day they stand in front of a beautiful, luminous glowing sky as the sun moves to the west.

I made this photograph in the early evening, before the golden hour light. Due to these lighting conditions and the typical characteristics of the Valley at this time of year, there was a great deal of atmospheric haze. While later light would reveal the ridge of the coast range in the distance, at this time the glowing haze blocked that view, and its effect can even be seen on the trees along the far levee. As large flocks of birds flew by – I think they were geese – they would pass behind and above the trees. Often they were in odd positions – too low to be visible behind the trees or so high that I would have had to expand the angle of view more than I wanted. But patience helps. I figure that eventually some birds will almost always fly past in the more or less right position, and here a lower string of birds was accompanied by a few flying higher. As I often do with this sort of subject, I compose a landscape around a combination of what I do see (the foreground water and birds, the levees, the trees) and what I imagine I might see if I’m lucky (birds occupying the space on either side and above the trees). Then I wait. I recall pressing the shutter release when the central three birds were centered above the tallest trees.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Tungsten Hills, Buttermilk Country, and the Sierra Crest

March 4, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Layers of terrain including Owens Valley sagebrush, the Tungsten Hills, Buttermilk Country, and the Sierra Crest including Basin Mountain, Mount Humphreys, and Mount Emerson.

In some ways this is a very typical eastern Sierra Nevada scene but in others, some of which might not be immediately obvious, it is atypical. I made the photograph while on my way to Death Valley in early January 2012. I had done the long drive over Tioga Pass (a first hint about the “unusual” issue) and was headed south to where I would turn east to cross the Inyo Range to that park. As I descended the long grade from Tom’s Place toward Bishop I passed through familiar Round Valley, but this little scene of sagebrush, Sierra foothills, and the crest caught my attention so I quickly stopped and made a few photographs.

The first and primary unusual thing about this photograph is that this was January! In a typical January the peaks here would be completely buried in winter snows – but this January the snowpack brought to mind mid-July. Although the season had started with early and heavy snows in October, things came to an abrupt halt and at this point it had been a month since real snow had fallen. A second slightly unusual thing is that I made this photograph in the mid-afternoon time frame. This is not a time typically regarded as being conducive to landscape photography. However, the high backlight was making the bluish haze more visible and the light was softened a bit by the high clouds, so I went ahead and made a photograph that, I hope, captures the somewhat harsh and dry conditions of the area and the season.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: license

Trillium Plant and Flower

Birds, Trees, Ponds – California Central Valley

Tungsten Hills, Buttermilk Country, and the Sierra Crest

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