Tag Archives: macro

Photographs: Nature

Woodland Star Flowers

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Woodland Star Flowers
Woodland Star flowers, spring, Pinnacles National Park

Woodland Star Flowers. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Woodland Star flowers, Spring, Pinnacles National Park.

Pinnacles National Park is almost and “old friend” of a park for me. My family first visited when I was quite young, and I recall exploring the High Peaks Trail and the caves. Although I knew that there could be excellent wildflower displays here I had never gotten myself organized to photograph there. So this was my first time to try to accomplish that task.

I arrived early in the morning, and it was easy to see lots of wildflowers immediately. I decided to hike up the shore of a small reservoir, from which I would continue on to the High Peaks Trail. Along the first section of trail the route passed through a small, intimate valley, and it was in this area that I spotted and photographed these flowers.

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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Photographs: Nature

Lupine And Paintbrush

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The flowers of lupine and paintbrush plants, Pinnacles National Park
The flowers of lupine and paintbrush plants, Pinnacles National Park

Lupine And Paintbrush. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The flowers of lupine and paintbrush plants, Pinnacles National Park.

I found these wildflowers — lupine and paintbrush — along the High Peaks Trail and Pinnacles National Park on a recent visit this spring. I had gone there to try to catch the tail end of the spring wildflower season, which was quite good this year following heavier-than-average rainfall. I also felt like it was time for a good hike over some mountainous terrain. This route gave me both.

While wildflower photography constitutes a small portion of my work, I’ve been attracted to the subject ever since I started going into outdoor places decades ago. This year, for the first time, I finally have a macro lens, arguably the ideal tool for this subject. My ideal wildflower subject probably has some combination of the following: an interesting flower or flowers, perhaps some colors that are both striking and interact well, soft light, a background that is either not distracting or which can be made so with focusing techniques. This one group of flowers gave me most of that. In an area that was largely in sun and mostly featured clumps of individual types of flowers, here I found the red paintbrush and the blue/purple lupine juxtaposed in a narrow band of shade.

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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Photographs: Nature

White Globe Lily… And Bug

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White Globe Lily... And Bug
An insect on the top of a white globe lily flower

White Globe Lily… And Bug. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An insect on the top of a white globe lily flower.

Folks who follow my photography may have noted a rather large number of photographs of very small things recently, mostly a lot of wildflowers. This isn’t an entirely new thing for me, as I have photographed and occasionally shared wildflower photographs before. What has changed? Two things. First, I’m married to “the Georgia O’Keeffe of photographer photography, and she has a macro lens almost permanently attached to her cameras so that she can photograph this subject. Second, I finally decided to spring for my own macro lens, and I’ve been out trying to learn more about its use.

When viewed through the macro lens, photographs of flowers often end up being photographs of other things, too — bits of pollen, spider webs, dusk and dirt, brown areas, holes… and in this case, one black bug of significant size. I misidentified this flower for years, and I was grateful to a viewer who recently set me straight. It is a white globe lily. (If you want to understand just one of the reasons that I’m often challenged by naming such things, it is apparently also known as “fairy lantern, white fairy lantern, pink fairy lantern, lantern of the fairies, globe lily, white globe-tulip, alabaster tulip, Indian bells, satin bells, snowy lily-bell, and snow drops!”)

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

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

Photographs: Nature

Shooting Star Flower

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Shooting Star Flower
Shooting star wildflowers, photographed in San Francisco Bay Area hills

Shooting Star Flower. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Shooting star wildflowers, photographed in San Francisco Bay Area hills.

Shooting stars are among my favorite wildflowers. I know that I have seen them for years — they grow in the California coastal hills where I have hiked since I was a child — but my first strong memory of them comes from the Sierra Nevada. Decades ago I summited Mount Whitney for the first time, near the end of a two-week backpack trip that had started on the opposite, west side of the range. As we descended we crossed a creek and there was a dense field of these flowers.

In addition to liking this flower, there is another reason for posting this photograph. After doing close-up work with a variety of compromises over the years — “diopters,” extension tubes on regular lenses — I finally picked up an actual macro lens, the Fujifilm XF 80mm f/2.8 R LM OIS WR Macro Lens for my Fujifilm X-Pro2 camera. I took it out for the first time recently, photographing spring wildflowers in a nearby canyon that I’ve visited for years.

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 | Facebook | Email

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

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