Tag Archives: nature

Photographs: Nature

Pink Dogwood Blossom

Image Leave a comment
Pink Dogwood Blossom
A pink spring dogwood blossom.

Pink Dogwood Blossom. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A pink spring dogwood blossom.

After posting a long string of recent photographs from rugged and arid desert landscapes along with a series of monochrome flower images, here’s something, well, pretty. This pink dogwood flower is not exactly a native plant here, and we photographed the subject at a large garden in the San Francisco Bay Area. (Most of the dogwood photographs in my archive are the nearly-pure white flowers found in the lower elevations of the Sierra Nevada.)

These beautiful flowers were not easy to photograph during our visit. Because the garden is a public place with ticketed access, it was mid- or late-morning by the time we got to these trees. The light was challenging — many flowers were in full sun, and even in the shady areas bright bits of sunlight fell on the scene. So I spent some time looking for flowers in the softer shadow light and then looked for angles that would place them in front of darker and neutral backgrounds.

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.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

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

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

Gullies, Hills, and Mountains

Image Leave a comment
Gullies, Hills, and Mountains
A line of badlands terrain full of gullies with desert mountains in the distance.

Gullies, Hills, and Mountains. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A line of badlands terrain full of gullies with desert mountains in the distance.

This photograph embodies many elements that attract me to Death Valley National Park. I’m always impressed by the clarity (and seeming irony) with which the place reveals the effect of water on the landscape. Essentially everything in this scene is the result of water, from the gullies on the soft foreground formations, to the gigantic, gravel-filled wash beyond, and the the eroded mountains in the distance. That distance is another important feature — I’ve only encountered the immense scale of this landscape in a few other places.

It was still morning when I made this photograph, though golden hour had passed. We had photographed more intimate aspects of the landscape in the earlier light, and now we were moving on when we paused at this high point to take in this gigantic scene. Beyond the foreground hills, the flat wash stretches for miles to the base of haze-obscured desert mountains.

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.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

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

Photographs: Nature

Tulips

Image Leave a comment
Tulips
Close-up photography of a tulip blossom, tulip buds, and plants.

Tulips. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Close-up photograph of a tulip blossom, tulip buds, and plants.

It seems that I have begun a little series of black and white flower photographs, so I’m going to run with it. Here’s another, this time featuring tulips — a background of tulip leaves and stems, a pair of buds at different stages of development, and one central flower that is just about to open.

Of course, the colors of spring flowers are the main story, and I’ve made plenty of color photographs of the subject. In fact, if you look back a bit in my post stream you may find a somewhat different take on this group of flowers done that way. But a monochromatic rendition gives me greater creative flexibility in many ways, and I think it also may let me focus on the forms of the flowers a bit more without the “distraction” of the appealing colors.

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.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

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

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

Layers and Folds

Image Leave a comment
Layers and Folds
The complex geology of badlands terrain, Death Valley National Park.

Layers and Folds. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

The complex geology of badlands terrain, Death Valley National Park.

The landscape of Death Valley National Park is extremely varied. The popular imagination first focuses on scenes of sand dunes, the classic signifier of “desert.” But the place is full of canyons, stream beds, surprising instances of water, mountain peaks, and even forests of several types. All of these are special, but scenes like this one may embody one of the the most common elements of this landscape, the exposure of its underlying geology.

The area of this photograph is incredibly complex. It is a maze of small, eroded formations and canyons, all of them interconnected. Underlying this are uplifted layers of material in colors ranging from nearly black to nearly white, interspersed with surprising bits of red, blue, and green. I photographed here early in the morning because the light was softer and richer and because the low angle of the sun entering the scene from the side delineated the eroded features.

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.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

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