Tag Archives: redwood

Commentary

Another Epic Sierra Round Trip

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The time was ripe this weekend for a visit to Yosemite Valley and perhaps other places, so a two-day photo trip was in order. As is sometimes the case when I do these short up-and-back runs, some things happened according to plan and others, uh, evolved.

I left the SF Bay Area at 3:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. The plan was to head to the Valley early and then possibly get on the wait list for a camp spot with the rest of the plan being to shoot spring subjects there for a couple days. Continue reading Another Epic Sierra Round Trip →

Commentary, Locations

Best time to visit Death Valley AND Yosemite?

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I just saw and replied to a forum post asking about the best time to try to visit Death Valley, the eastern Sierra, Tioga Pass/Tuolumne Meadows and Yosemite Valley in one trip that starts in Las Vegas and ends in Sacramento. I’m reposting my reply here since I’ve heard others ask similar questions elsewhere. Note that despite the lengthy post, this doesn’t by any means completely answer this question. So, with minor edits, here is what I posted:

When to do a trip that includes Death Valley and Yosemite Valley and everything in between? This is a very tough question.

The “best” time to visit Death Valley is generally thought to be in the November to early April time frame – but that coincides with closure of the Tioga Pass entrance into  Yosemite National Park, typically lasting from possibly (but not always) late October or mid-November until (usually) sometime in May.

So, I think it becomes a question of which end of the trip you want to compromise. Do you want to deal with Death Valley during the very hottest time or do you want to deal with the potential for a very long drive around the southern part of the Sierra (and missing the “east side”) in order to get to The Valley after the pass closes?

I travel and photograph throughout this area a lot, so let me offer some ideas. Continue reading Best time to visit Death Valley AND Yosemite? →

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

Andrew’s Clintonia

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Andrew's Clintonia

Andrew’s Clintonia. Muir Woods National Monument, California. April 11, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Newly emerging spring Andrew’s Clintonia (Clintonia andrewsiana) plant at Muir Woods National Monument, California with immature flowers.

I hope I have correctly identified this plant – with the help of a few people who contacted me after I posted the photo along with a request for plant ID help on my dan’s outside blog. The flowers are the tricky part. All of the photographs of this plant that I could find during my search for identification look different – but the plant apparently doesn’t actually blossom until a few weeks or a month after I made the photograph, so here we’re just seeing the early buds. The leaves look right. It grows in the right place – in the redwood forest and Muir Woods. And I found one online example with mature flowers that has the same single leaf near the top of the flower stalk. So I’s sticking with Andrew’s clintonia until someone comes up with a better idea!

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

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

Two Fairy Bell Flowers

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Two Fairy Bell Flowers

Two Fairy Bell Flowers. Muir Woods National Monument, California. April 11, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of a pair of fairy bell wildflowers at Muir Woods National Monument, California.

In this black and white photograph of two fairy bells flowers I decided to go with a very diffused rendition. The color and tonalities of this scene were fairly subtle in many ways – for example, the color of the flowers is only a bit more yellow than that of the leaves. The very soft light on the floor of the redwood forest and the very narrow depth of field created by the close distance, long lens, and large aperture contribute various types and amounts of soft and diffused character to the image. I thought it would be interesting, having done so many realistic wildflower photographs in recent weeks, to try something a bit more abstracted.

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

keywords: fairy, bells, wildflower, flower, wild, leaf, light, bokeh, blur, branch, plant, foliage, redwood, forest, grove, woods, shade, muir, national, monument, park, golden gate, recreation area, marin, county, california, usa, black and white, monochrome, stock, nature, scenic, travel, petal, branch, Disporum hookerae, Disporum hookeri