Tag Archives: redwoods

Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Redwood National & State Parks

Redwood Understory

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Redwood Understory
Brush, rhododendrons, and small trees growing at the base of old coast redwood trees.

Redwood Understory. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Brush, rhododendrons, and small trees growing at the base of old coast redwood trees.

This photograph takes me back to early June, when we spent a few days photographing in far Northern California’s coast redwood country, mostly in the famous national and state redwood parks up there. The timing of visits to the redwoods always seems a bit tricky, and in my experience it seems that the dates for important things like the arrival of the rhododendron bloom can be pretty variable. On this trip we want back on more or less the same dates as our previous visit, but this time we saw far fewer rhododendron blooms. Of course, with the disrupted climate and drought in California, things seem to be off schedule generally.

I am somewhat notorious for being unable to encounter fog in this area, at least in the redwood forest. I regularly see foggy redwood forest photographs by others, but when I go the fog seems to flee the scene! On this morning there actually was a bit of fog though. A few minutes early some stray fog clouds had passed through the trees, and when I made this photograph higher clouds muted the light quite nicely. The lighter plant in the foreground is a tree-like rhododendron… with almost no flowers!

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.

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Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Redwood National & State Parks

Old Growth Forest

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Old Growth Forest
Immense coast redwood trees in an old growth forest, Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

Old Growth Forest. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Immense coast redwood trees in an old growth forest, Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

On an early June day our long driving loop took us out to the Lost Coast on a narrow, winding, somewhat lonely, and very scenic road. After dropping precipitously from coastal mountains to an isolated beach it followed to coast south for several miles before again turning inland. The route eventually passed though small hamlets (with the tell-tale plastic covered greenhouses in abundance) and began to climb drier, inland ridges. Finally it once again dropped steeply, entering one of the quietest and most still redwood forest groves I have been in.

After the long drive it was time to stop and this seemed a perfect place. Before long we decided to get out camera equipment and simply wander for a while in the still forest of giant old-growth trees. Even after years of visiting the coastal redwoods, it still surprised me to see how dark it is along the forest floor — little light makes it down from the crowns of the trees hundreds of feet above. This photograph looks off into the forest, and if you inspect it closely you may notice that, aside from the foreground ferns, the entire scene is comprised of the trees.

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.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Redwood National & State Parks

Redwood Grove, Humboldt Redwoods

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Redwood Grove, Humboldt Redwoods
A dense grove of old- and new-growh coast redwoods, Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

Redwood Grove, Humboldt Redwoods. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A dense grove of old- and new-growh coast redwoods, Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

When photographing new locations, there is a tension between knowing enough and knowing too much ahead of time. In most cases, some preparatory research about a place is useful — it lets you find your way to (and back from!) interesting locations, and it alerts you to their existence. On the other hand, knowing too much about a place limits opportunities to experience the feeling of “discovering” something unexpected. When we arrived at this grove near the end of an exploratory loop to the far Northern California coast, the unexpected stillness and quiet of this magnificent grove was magical.

Another tension concerns the best way(s) to interpret coast redwood forests in photographs. For me, the path usually lies somewhere between the (hopeless and uninteresting) idea of “capturing” supposed objective reality and fascinating and extravagantly subjective and even fantastical interpretations that may be problematic. I don’t think that there is a right answer, but extreme cases raise important questions. On this visit I focused on carefully considering what I see without the camera — how cool/warm the light appears in these places, how much detail can I really see, how much light is really in the scene. These observations inform how I render these subjects — and my thinking about the boundaries between what was there, how the camera “saw” it, and how I want you to see it.

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.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Redwood National & State Parks

Fern Vortex

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Fern Vortex
A spiraling arrangement of fern fronds in Northern California redwood forest.

Fern Vortex. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A spiraling arrangement of fern fronds in Northern California redwood forest.

We did not get back to the Redwood National and State Parks this past year — the time we would have gone coincided with that period when we were all locking down in response to the pandemic. In retrospect, it was perhaps starting to look like camping might have worked, but things were still in too much of a state of flux at that point. So this photograph comes from the previous season, back in June of 2019.

Late in the day we decided to head to a spot where I knew from experience the tit might be possible to find rhododendron blossoms growing among the redwood trees, a place where the normally dark forest tends to pick up a bit more light from the west in the late afternoon. We wandered a trail and eventually descended into an area full of ferns. Here I turned my attention away from the huge trees and looked downwards to find compositions among the ferns.

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 | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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