Tag Archives: spring

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Brown-eyed Evening Primrose

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Brown-eyed Evening Primrose
Brown-eyed Evening Primrose

Brown-eyed Evening Primrose. Death Valley National Park, California. March 27, 2010. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Brown-eyed Evening Primrose flowers and buds, Death Valley National Park

Going through some older Death Valley photographs near the end of 2012, I came across a few photographs of small desert flowers including this one of (what I’m pretty certain is) Brown-eyed Evening Primrose. (I’m certain it is a primrose, and it seems to fit the description of the specific form.) I’m not sure why this and a few related photographs had sort of disappeared into the raw file collection, though every time I go back through the old original files I find something interesting that I missed the first time around.

Even though it has now been several years, I recall quite specifically making this and the other similar photographs. I had driven to a well-known Death Valley location – one of the “icons” – quite early in the morning, and as I looked around near that subject, I saw some color on a small, rocky hill just off the highway. I decided to investigate, so I walked over there with my gear and wandered up onto the small hill. (I suspect that anyone who had seem me poking around over there might have wanted to yell, “Hey, you, the photograph is over this way!”) It had rained recently and what I found was a fairly astonishing number of new wildflowers that were just beginning to come to life in this seemingly barren and rocky area. I ended up photographing a number of different types of flowers and even surprises such as a big green caterpillar!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Spring Trees, Waterfall Mist

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Spring Trees, Waterfall Mist
“Spring Trees, Waterfall Mist ” — Waterfall mist fills the air around sunlit maple trees with new spring leaves, Yosemite National Park

There are at least two stories behind this photograph. The first involves a family tradition that I started when I began taking my kids to The Valley quite a few years ago when they were small. Each spring we would take a “waterfall trip” as close as possible to the time of peak runoff – sometimes going up to the Valley and back in a single day. As part of this event, it was also my tradition that we would “say hello to summer” in the Sierra by making the first stop at Bridal Veil falls, then hiking as close to the base of the fall as possible, in order to stand in the tremendous wind-blown clouds of spray, usually getting thoroughly soaked. This year we were there without our kids, who are now “all growed up” and off living their own lives, but I still had to make a ritual visit to the spray at the base of this fall. Yes, I got soaked. :-)

The second story might actually be a continuation of the first. Sometimes I go to experience something rather than to photograph it. That was my intention when we walked to the fall this time, so I left my “big camera” gear behind. But as we rounded a corner on the trail and I looked up into the morning light from the sun that had just cleared the top of the cliff, I saw this wonderful silhouetted maple tree standing in mist-filled air with the still-shaded waterfall beyond. But I did not have my “big camera” nor did I have a tripod — I had my small Fujifilm X-E1, but with the wrong lens for this shot. I turned to my wife, who also had an X-E1 but usually attaches a 60mm macro lens (she is passionate about photographing small things!) and asked if I could borrow her camera/lens to try to squeeze off a couple of shots. She agreed, and I made two exposures on her camera, shooting handheld in the spray and wind.

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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

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Trees on Granite Ridge

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Trees on Granite Ridge
Trees on Granite Ridge

Trees on Granite Ridge. Yosemite National Park, California. May, 12, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Rugged trees growing along the top of a glaciated granite ridge, Yosemite National Park

I made this photograph on my first visit of the season to the Tioga Pass area of the Yosemite National Park high country. I managed to be there on the first and second open days. This was an unusual though perhaps not unprecedented sort of opening, in that there was a record low amount of snow in the Sierra as the warm season began, and this was the second of two back-to-back low-snowfall winters. This season was an odd one. I was in the Sierra back in early fall and it seemed like we might actually have an early and wet winter. Certainly things played out that way through the end of 2012 – but then the tap was shut off and there was precious little precipitation at all during the first part of 2013. As you can see in the photograph, there was still some snow around, but it looked more like late June or even early July of a more typical year.

The photograph was made near a very popular location along Tioga Pass Road, though I walked more or less the opposite direction from the objects of everyone else’s interest to find a vantage point that let me photograph back across this granite ridge, littered with glacial erratic boulders and the debris from exfoliation, and supporting a few trees. The morning light slanted in from behind the ridge and the trees and left a bluish haze between this ridge and the even larger granite ridge across a deep valley.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Dogwood Blossoms, Rushing Water

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Dogwood Blossoms, Rushing Water
Dogwood Blossoms, Rushing Water

Dogwood Blossoms, Rushing Water. Yosemite National Park, California. May 3, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Spring dogwood blossoms on a branch above rushing water, Yosemite Valley, California

Continuing with this spring’s “dogwood blossoms over water” theme, here is another from my one-day dogwood photography foray to Yosemite Valley in early May. This photograph was made in an area where I made several others of more or less this subject, a spot where I was able to position myself so that dogwood blossoms in soft shadow light would appear against a background of darker water that was in even deeper shade.

Besides getting a beautiful branch to hang diagonally across the frame, in this photograph I was interested in a background that included both some darker water and some of the constantly changing patterns of white water. Anyone who has tried this will recognize that the task provides a combination of wonderful, time-killing fun and some frustration as you realize that you just missed another unexpected and ephemeral pattern of water flow. Needless to say, I (and most other photographers I’ve talked to) are glad we have digital cameras now, since there are often quite a few ordinary or worse frames for each decent or good one!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.