Spring Flowers at Mirror Lake. Yosemite National Park, California. April 27, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Tiny spring flowers photographed along the shoreline of Mirror Lake in Yosemite Valley.
keywords: California, National Park, Sierra Nevada, Spring, Yosemite, usa, valley, mirror lake, nature, flower, plant, blossom, bloom, leaf, hike, macro, pink, maroon, green, stock
Pink and White Wildflowers. Almaden Quicksilver Park, California. April 26, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Pink and white spring wildflowers photographed at Almaden Quicksilver Park, California.
Once again, a photo shot handheld with the 24-105mm lens. I like to use this photo and some similar ones to respond to folks who are convinced that “the 24-105mm f/4 L IS has bad bokeh.” I’ll admit that it doesn’t always produce great blurred backgrounds, but if you are careful you can actually get some nice bokeh from it. And for handheld wildflower shots its focal length is just about perfect and the image stabilization turns out the be very useful.
I’ve been told that these flowers are “Stachys ajugoides – rigid wood mint,” though after looking around at some online photos of that plant I’m not 100% certain since the leaves don’t seem quite right. Anyone?
keywords: pink, white, flowers, wild, wildflowers, nature, delicate, stem, leaf, green, bokeh, almaden, quicksilver, mines, park, santa clara county, san jose, california, usa, plant, hiking, trail, stock
Sand Waves – Death Valley Dunes at Dusk. Death Valley National Park, California. April 1, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Color photograph of “sand waves” at dusk on the transverse dunes in front of the main Death Valley Dunes near Stovepipe Wells, Death Valley National Park. Photographed after sunset as the last light began to fade.
A couple notes on the photograph… I had just barely arrived and set up camp when the light started to turn as sunset approached. My brother and I realized that we needed to “go now!” if we were to catch the light, so we jumped in the vehicle and had just enough time to get to this spot and pull over at the side of the road. There was no time to head out onto the dunes so I put the long lens (400mm) on the camera and approached the subject it a different way than I might have otherwise.
keywords: color, photo, photography, sand, waves, desert, plants, pink, blue, sunset, dusk, death valley, national park, dunes, funeral mountains, stock, landscape, scenic, travel, nature, california, usa, footprints