Tag Archives: photography

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Purple Larkspur Flowers

April 16, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Purple larkspur spring blossoms at Almaden Quicksilver County Park, California.

I think I’ll post another spring wildflower photograph before resuming the Death Valley posts – who knows, maybe I’ll post a few more first!

I’m a bit weak on flower identification. Although I can tell you when certain flowers will come up, tell you exactly where to look for them, and even recognize the plants before the flowers bloom… I cannot always remember the common names, much less the Latin names. With that said, I’m reasonably certain that these are Larkspur blooms.

This patch is on a particular hillside along a particular sunny turn in a trail in the small “wildflower valley” at Almaden Quicksilver Park that I mentioned in an earlier post. At this spot the trail descend though a somewhat open area that faces west and the plants are in a boundary between some much more shaded forest and a bit of open grass-covered terrain. In a small area here that is perhaps no more than 20 feet across, right above a small oak tree set in the edge of the trail, I can always find a small group of these flowers right near the beginning of April.

They are not easy to photograph. The flowers are not terribly large and tripod placement is very tough on the steep hill where they grow. To make this photograph I added an extension tube to a 24-105mm image-stabilized lens and got down on my knees. I was quite close – a matter of a few inches from the flowers. Depth of field is very small, so the trick is to find a good angle that both provides the right kind of background and which puts the main flower roughly parallel to the sensor, to find an interesting composition of the flowers, and then to move the camera slightly back and forth until the primary subject comes into focus. (The camera won’t auto-focus very will with this setup.) The very dark colors of this flower also add to the challenge!

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM (with extension tube) at 73mm
ISO 400, f/4, 1/160 second

keywords: purple, flower, bloom, petal, larkspur, wild, wildflower, spring, green, grass, bokeh, almaden, quicksilver, county, park, santa clara, san jose, california, usa, north america, nature, foliage, season, stock

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

White Globe Lily Flower and Grasses

April 15, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Chinese Lantern Flower and Grasses — White Globe Lily Flower and Grasses

A spring white globe lily flower blossoms among the seeds of new grass, Almaden Quicksilver County Park, California.

I’m posting this as a brief interlude in the steady stream of photographs from my late March visit to Death Valley. This photograph was obviously not made in Death Valley. (Yes, there are flowers there. No, not this one!)

Weather frustrated some of my photographic plans on the day that I made this photograph, so late in the day I decided to at least head out briefly and try to photograph some of the spring wildflowers that are blooming right now at one of my favorite local parks. There is a small valley not far from a trailhead at Almaden Quicksilver County Park that I know very well – I photograph there every spring when many, many wildflowers appear. For this little adventure I decided to go very light, taking only a camera body, one extension tube, and a 24-105mm zoom lens and planning to shoot hand held.

The sun was out when I left my home, but within five minutes it started raining! I was starting to think that photography just wasn’t going to be in the cards at all on this day, but I decided to keep driving anyway. The rain increased. The clouds above the hills where I was headed looked quite dark. But as I got closer I saw that this little shower was going to pass over and head to the east, and when I arrived there was broken sun.

I quickly walked to the small valley mentioned above, noticing the wonderfully green foliage in this area that is brown and dry during most of the year. As I started down the trail into the Valley I had a pretty good idea of what flowers to expect and where to look for them, since I know this spot very well. Thinking that it was still a bit early for these white globe lily flowers to be out, I looked for the plants instead, thinking that I’d be able to return later when the flowers were in bloom. But lower in the canyon I was surprised to find some of the flowers were already out and in bloom, including this specimen growing in a grassy area.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM (with extension tube) at 70mm
ISO 400, f/8, 1/100 second

keywords: chinese, lantern, flower, bud, blossom, bloom, plant, nature, grass, green, growth, new, leaf, san jose, santa clara, county, california, usa, north america, spring, white, almaden, quicksilver, park, stock

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

Folds and Strata, Zabriskie Point

April 12, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Convoluted folds topped by some stratified material at Zabraskie Point, Death Valley National Park, California.

A new hobby for me when photographing Zabriskie Point is to forego the famous panoramic views of Manley Beacon and the Panamints – well, at least sometimes – and to instead focus on smaller details of the patterns in the fantastically folded terrain. Starting about a year ago, I also became intrigued by the idea of shooting here at unusual times of the day: late morning, early afternoon, and so forth. I started doing this when a year ago I shot somewhere else at dawn and then happened to stop her much later in the morning – only to discover that some of the shapes and forms that are in shadow early in the day are actually better-lit later on.

On my late-March trip I did shoot Zabriskie at the “popular” time of dawn on one morning, but on another day I spent a good amount of time shooting here during the less classically ideal time in the middle of the afternoon. I was lucky enough to get just a bit of high thing clouds which reduced contrast just a bit, but kept the interesting shadows and illuminated ridges that appear at this time of day. When I shoot this way I go straight for a very long lens and focus on smaller details of the scene, ignoring the larger and broader landscape in favor of bits of a gully, shadowed or sunlit ridges, or a bit of strata material sitting on top of the folded material as seen here.

Rather than amp up the contrast and saturation – an easy trap to fall for in the afternoon light – I decided to keep the softer and less saturated effect that I was actually there when I made the photographs.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM at 250mm
ISO 100, f/16, 1/30 second

keywords: zabriskie, point, death valley, national, park, california, usa, north america, nature, landscape, geology, scenic, travel, form, formations, fold, gully, rock, strata, material, shadow, light, abstract, view, ridge, hill, manifold, overlook, desert, barren, stock

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

Death Valley Dunes, Morning

April 11, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Black and white photograph of the Death Valley Dunes in early morning light.

This photograph was made on a late-March morning when I had wandered out around the west end of Death Valley Dunes, near Stovepipe Wells, and entered them from close to the back side. I often approach the dunes this way in the morning since it means crossing much less deep sand and because fewer people tend to go this way. (The latter seems to be even more true now that the NPS has installed and “official” parking lot – with restrooms! – along the road near where most folks traditionally stopped to make their direct approach to the tallest dunes.)

I was in an area of lower dunes mostly shooting nearby sand textures and the long shadows cast by hills and plants in the very early light. However, it is hard to ignore the amazing curves and textures of the dunes as they rise towards the east, especially when they are side-lit like this. So I spent a few minutes pointing the long lens int that direction. When I made the photographs I was sort of disappointed that I couldn’t keep the footprints in the bright foreground sand out of the image, but in retrospect I think that they actually improve the photograph.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM at 400mm
ISO 200, f/11, 1/40 second

keywords: death valley, national, park, california, usa, north america, nature, scenic, travel, landscape, dunes, sand, mesquite, folds, shadow, light, pattern, hill, peak, foot, prints, mountain, morning, stock

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