Tag Archives: plants

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Walkway, Lan Su Chinese Garden

July 9, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A covered walkway at the Portland Chinese Garden.

After our recent stay in Portland, Oregon, I understand that there is more to the city than beer. Though don’t overlook the beer… ;-) Portland seems to be a city of gardens, at least in the central portion where we spent most of our visit. This may be redundant, but there are beautiful gardens of all types and in a variety of places. We visited nearly a half-dozen, even though that wasn’t the primary goal of our trip. (And, no, it wasn’t the beer, either. But that did figure in our plans, too.)

On this day we were walking around portions of the downtown area, mostly south of the main downtown center. In the afternoon we decided to head north and east a bit and walk into Portland’s Chinatown area. It is a much different place than the more compressed and more touristy Chinatown of San Francisco. Our main goal was the Lan Su Chinese Garden. This garden is a beautiful little marvel, located in an area where you might not expect to find such a thing. Although it occupies a very small downtown block, there is much to see inside, especially if you walk slowly and look carefully. At one point I imagined what it might be like to be in such a place alone, so I made a point of trying to make a few photographs that didn’t include other visitors, such as this black and white photograph of a covered walkway winding along an edge of the garden.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Red Rock, Capitol Reef

May 20, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Red rock sandstone formations, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah.

I’m afraid that our time in Capitol Reef National Park during our early April visit to Utah was extremely limited – essentially we just passed through on highway 12 on the day we travelled from Zion (where we had spent several days) to Moab. I wish I could have had some real time to explore this area, but at least I got a glimpse of it – enough that I know to put in on my list of places to revisit when I have more time on a future trip.

As we passed through Capitol Reef, aside from viewing things from the car, we made two stops. One was in the Fruita district area to see some petroglyphs and the other was this viewpoint along the highway, from which there was an impressive panorama of the beautiful red rock country. Although this was perhaps not the ideal time of day for photography, the weather gods cooperated enough to give me a bit of high, thin overcast to soften the light and to place these beautiful layered clouds above and beyond the sandstone ridge.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Beach and Rocks, Whalers Cove

May 16, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Large rocks and a sandy beach below the bluffs at Whalers Cover, Point Lobos State Reserve.

For some reason this little vignette caught my attention when I visited Point Lobos one morning in late March. The spot is a section of the curving beach at the inside of Whalers Cove, where a bluff sits above short cliffs at the edge of the sand. This is another of those spots that I have visited for literally decades, yet never photographed. Although I have photographed nearby I don’t think I have any photographs of this little beach area at all, but I’ve been eyeing it during my last few visits.

The cove itself is an appealing spot, somewhat different from many other parts of Point Lobos. Those tend to feature quite rugged seashore, often with cliffs and rocks that run right down into the surging water of the Pacific Ocean. But this cove is doubly protected from the ocean, by being a cove and by having an entrance that does not face straight out toward the ocean. It is filled with kelp beds and is a good place to look for sea lions very close to the shore. (Several were hanging out, wrapped in kelp and lounging around, not more than a few feet from the shore.)

Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Redwood Creek, Late Winter

March 7, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Golden light reflects on the muddy winter flow of Redwood Creek as it flows over boulders and new late-winter growth.

Even in this dry year in Northern California, there is finally water running in the creeks of the redwood forests. I arrived fairly early on this early March day, looking for trillium flowers. (Although they are not the subject of this photograph, I did find those flowers later on this visit.) As I walked up the trail to enter this park, the sun had risen but it was too early for its light to make it down to the forest floor or to the creek. However, the reflected light of the sun hitting trees high overhead was turning the water a sort of golden brown color, which contrasted in a striking way with the bluish light on the rocks and in some of the shaded areas of the water. New spring (though that season was still several weeks away) growth was coming up everywhere, including in shallow areas of the creek such as this one.

Because I could not get right down to the creek here, I actually photographed this with a fairly long telephoto lens. I had to look around carefully to find a spot where there was enough of a break in the foreground vegetation to provide me with a gap to shoot through. I was also lucky that the plants were not moving a lot in the creek, since the exposure time was surprisingly long – there isn’t a lot of light down in the bottom a canyon through the redwood forest!

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: plants

Walkway, Lan Su Chinese Garden

Red Rock, Capitol Reef

Beach and Rocks, Whalers Cove

Redwood Creek, Late Winter

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.