Tag Archives: spring

Photographs: Nature

Green and Yellow Tulip

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Green and Yellow Tulip
“Green and Yellow Tulip” — A yellow tulip begins to open, wiht some of its green bud color intact.

Yes, another tulip! I made a lot of tulip photographs on our early-spring visit to the garden of a historic estate on the San Francisco Peninsula. I won’t share all of them, but I will continue to gradually release a set that includes different colors, settings, and states of development.

As I have previously mentioned, I particularly enjoy the appearance of the buds before they fully blossom, and I rarely photograph them once they are mature flowers. This one takes me about as close to that final stage as I can go and still claim that it is (sort of) a bud. This specimen is right on the edge of blooming fully, and we can almost see it opening up. A bit of the bud’s green color is retained, but the yellow of the flower predominates.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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Photographs: Nature

Yellow Tulip Bud #2

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Yellow Tulip Bud #2
“Yellow Tulip Bud #2” — A yellow tulip bud on the verge of blossoming.

This may seem like an odd admission, but the way I make these flower photographs has more in common with how I do street photography than, say, landscape photography. Because the subject appears to be still, you could think that I probably carefully pick a flower, set up a tripod, analyze the light, focus, and then make the photograph. The reality is that I shoot all of these with a small handheld camera, and I rarely spend more than a minute on a flower and often less.

I think part of this is because I have a general sense of what I’m looking for beforehand. As seen here, I’m on the lookout for a flower (or flowers) with an interesting shape, a relatively flawless form, good light, and a background with some potential. I spend a lot of time looking for the right combination, and when I find it I spend less time actually making the photograph.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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(All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.)

Photographs: Nature

Tulip Bud and Leaves

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Tulip Bud and Leaves
“Tulip Bud and Leaves” — A spring tulip bud, just before blossoming.

This photograph is the result of something I rarely do — post the same photograph in monochrome and color versions. I shared a color version recently, but while I was working on the image in post I took a little detours and experiment with a black and white interpretation. I like both of them, though they do create different effects.

Black and white almost always has a more abstract quality to me. We know that the world is not monochromatic, so we begin to accept a wider range of interpretations as soon as we move to black and white. There’s less of the “it isn’t real!” concern with monochrome. (Not everyone realizes it, but monochrome images have historically often been the subject of extensive post-processing.) Here I think that the monochromatic version lets us focus more on the shapes and tones themselves, with less need to relate the image to something real.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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(All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.)

Photographs: Nature

California Buttercup

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California Buttercup
“California Buttercup” — A California buttercup spring wildflower, Almaden Quicksilver Park.

Previously I have mentioned my habit of returning to seemingly unremarkable places that are special to me — perhaps a particular rock in the Yosemite high country, a certain tree in the Central Valley, an overlook along the Big Sur coast, one small Eastern Sierra aspen grove, and so on. If you visited these places (at the right times) you might think, “Well, yes, that is nice — but it isn’t iconic.” And you would be right. They are not iconic — they are just special to me. This flower photograph comes from one of those places.

There is a park in the South San Francisco Bay Area where I have hiked for decades. Over the years I’ve probably walked pretty much every trail within its boundaries. One trail descends into a small, shady gully where wildflowers grow in April. I go back every year, specifically to find, small plots of particular flowers. I made this photograph on my most recent walk to this place.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

G Dan Mitchell: Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


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