Tag Archives: plants

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Water Plants

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Water Plants
Water plants growing in a wetland pond

Water Plants. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Water plants growing in a wetland pond

Reflecting water is endlessly fascinating, and it is hard to resist and opportunity to photograph it, especially when it serves to abstract the forms of other subjects. No two such photographs are ever quite alike, as the water is always in motion and the patterns of reflected light, clouds, and sky are constantly shifting.

These water plants, which you might think of as being almost objectively ugly in some conditions, become transformed by the reflections and by being positioned against the nearly featureless background of the water’s surface. Photographing this subject is, as I’ve observed among my photographer friends, both unavoidable and often a bit more difficult that you think it will be. These nearly random forms are appealing, but when you look at them closely it is easy to find compositional problems — overlaps, awkward shapes, unbalanced arrangements.

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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, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Yosemite Forest, Spring

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Yosemite Forest, Spring
Spring plants sprout among the conifers in Yosemite Valley

Yosemite Forest, Spring. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Spring plants sprout among the conifers in Yosemite Valley

This photograph is the result of some aimless wandering and of finally visiting a spot that I have wondered about for years. Most of my landscape photography is done early and late in the day, and when the days get longer this can leave me with a lot of free midday time. What I do during those hours varies. If I am camping I may take that time for camp chores, otherwise known as eating, reading, and napping. When I’m in the gigantic landscape of Death Valley I may use this as travel time. On this recent set of visits to Yosemite Valley I used it as hiking time — either with my full complement of photography equipment or perhaps with a smaller camera and a couple of lenses. (Sometimes it is a relief to leave the “big gear” behind for a while!)

Although the light wasn’t favorable at this time of day, I decided to head up the Valley on foot towards a place where the shadows of towering cliffs would block the harsh daytime light a bit earlier in the day. I got there and saw a sigh I had seen before for something called “the fen.” I know that word from literary sources, but I had never (after all these decades!) bothered to investigate it in the Valley. I was in no hurry, so I wandered off in that direction. One of the features of the area is rather dense and, in some ways, lush vegetation. I looked, I finished, I wandered off to look at something else. But in the back of my mind I was thinking about these trees, and a bit later when the cliff shadows had lengthened enough to reach this spot I returned and made this photograph. While big, iconic features evoke Yosemite for us — and with good reason — for me these quiet little out-of-the-way spots in the forest are just as important in defining the place.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Wetlands Evening

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Wetlands Evening
Trees, plants, and a few birds under a bank of clouds above San Joaquin Valley wetlands

Wetlands Evening. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trees, plants, and a few birds under a bank of clouds above wetlands

The process of bird-photography, at least as I know it, is perhaps not quite what people who don’t photograph this subject might imagine. The actual practice and experience varies from photographer to photographer and, no doubt, from place to place. However, I’d be willing to bet that many people would be surprised at how much not-photographing goes on! There are amazing moments when we come upon a special scene, when a huge flock of geese lifts off, when we get close to a raptor, when the light and sky do something astonishing. Then there are all the other moments, and they form the majority of the experience. The birds are somewhere else. They are just a bit too far away. The light goes flat. It rains. And so on.

The fact of the matter is that in order to photograph those periodic extraordinary moments, you have to spend a lot of time just being there. If really special stuff happens, say 1% of the time, you’ll increase your odds of experiencing it if your base is 100 hours rather and one. Of course, that also means that you’ll increase the number of slow hours when not much happens. Be ready. Bring a book. Take a nap. Wander a bit. And sometimes take a look at other subjects, like the still and quiet grasses growing in a shallow pond beneath winter skies, even though there aren’t a whole lot of birds there.

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: Night, Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Urban/Street

Porch and Door, Night

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Porch and Door, Night
The porch and entrance to an urban residence, Pasadena, California

Porch and Door, Night. Pasadena, California. January 6, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The porch and entrance to an urban residence, Pasadena, California

This is another photograph I made during the blue hour time just after sunset and before actual darkness, while walking around near downtown Pasadena, California. We started our walk in late afternoon sun, continued as the sunset came on and golden hour arrived, and continued walking on into and past dusk. Later on the walk we turned down a street lined with small, old residential units — homes, apartments, and so on.

Somehow this front door at the top of the cement steps reminded me of an earlier time, perhaps when I was a child. The architecture seems old enough to come from more or less that era. I also like the little unexpected things in the scene, some of which I wasn’t really aware of until later when I looked at the photograph: the hummingbird feeder, the watering can sitting on the porch, that odd slender “thing” to the left of the door, the slightly peeling paint, the faint suggestion of things inside the window at the right.

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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