Tag Archives: plants

Photographs: Nature

Emerging Tulip

Image Leave a comment
Emerging Tulip
A blossoming pink tulip against a background of tulip greenery.

Emerging Tulip. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A blossoming pink tulip against a background of tulip greenery.

Today I’m taking a detour away from the recent and extensive series of photographs from Death Valley and heading about as far in another direction as possible! This is the first of a small group of photographs that I made on a recent morning when I accompanied Patty (our resident photographer of flowers and other small things) to a Bay Area garden where tulips and many other springtime things were sprouting. It is a bit of an odd spring here — it follows over two months of almost no rain, which is extremely rare for this season in Central California, and it feels like the peak spring season is going to be abbreviated.

This garden, in San Mateo County south of San Francisco, features formal plantings over and extensive area. From late winter through spring it seems like one thing after another comes into form here, and on this visit the tulips were the main show. Most of them are intensely colorful and growing in large groups, but I decided to try to focus on some of the less intensely colorful flowers and to set them against the background of green stems and leaves.

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

Stems

Image Leave a comment
Stems
Stems of new bulbs crowd together.

Stems. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Stems of new bulbs crowd together.

It isn’t unusual for someone to ask about one of my photographs, “Have you thought about how it would look in black and white?” Why, yes, I almost certainly have! When I began “doing photography” quite a few decades ago, I started with black and white film and printing, and almost all of the photographers I admired were those doing black and white work. Sometimes I know at the time of exposure that a photograph will be black and white. (Though I prefer today’s technology that allows me to capture for color image data for use in the post-processing conversion to monochrome.) Sometimes I’m positive that a photograph will end up as a color image. And sometimes, to be honest, I’m not certain.

This photograph falls into the latter category. Sort of. But not exactly. The thing that drew me to the subject originally was the pattern of very green plants. In fact, a while ago I shared a version of this photograph that is very much a color image. But yet… I felt that it would also work in black and white, and that in some ways the “abstract” nature of patterns of lines and contrasts between light and dark might even work better in some ways using a monochrome rendition.

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

Morning Green

Image Leave a comment
Morning Green
Garden plants after morning watering.

Morning Green. © Copyright 2022.G Dan Mitchell.

Garden plants after morning watering.

After focusing on a rather dry sort of landscape for much of the past month, recently I have had a couple of chances to photograph much more colorful and lush subjects here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Due to the seasonal change — yes, spring is on its way — and the effects of another drier-than-usual winter, plants are sprouting and even blossoming here.

We have made a couple of trips to a large local garden that is open to the public, usually going on a less-busy weekday morning and trying to arrive as soon as the place opens. It seems to me that on these weekday mornings there is a lot of garden work taking place — watering, trimming, pruning, planting, and cleaning up. Quite a few of the photographs I have made have involved the detritus of these activities: old leaves and blooms on the ground, flowers a bit past their peak, and in this case some plants that had been watered moments before I arrived.

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

Leaf Edge

Image Leave a comment
Leaf Edge
The edge of a yellow leaf against blue shadowed background.

Leaf Edge. © Copyright 2022.G Dan Mitchell.

The edge of a yellow leaf against blue shadowed background.

Recently I have begun looking through my archives for photographs featuring the yellow and blue color scheme of Ukraine’s flag — you might think of it as an emerging “blue and yellow” series. I’ve also been on the lookout for new subjects that feature the colors of this flag, a new symbol of the fight against tyranny and against the brutal invasion of this country by Russia and its dictator.

I’ll mostly leave that as the primary text accompanying this photograph, with only a bit of reference to the subject of the image. Recently I was photographing a garden that is beginning to emerge from winter dormancy as spring approaches. Mainly we went there to view and photograph new flowers, but here and there I found evidence of winter and even of autumn, including a few leaves still bearing autumn 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.