Old Stump, Redwood Forest. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
An old redwood stump stands among dense undergrowth in a Northern California coast redwood forest.
The coast redwood forest can seem almost static — it is a place of quiet stillness, populated with many very, very old trees. On quiet days the only motion comes from an occasional bird and continuous slight movements of the air. But it is actually a place of continuous transition, as a scene like this reminds me. In the left foreground is a young tree that is extending toward the canopy to find light, but in the middle is a very old and worn stump of a long-gone redwood. And, of course, around the base of the trunk is a carpet of annual plants.
I photographed this on a slow walk through a section of redwood forest one morning when fog was intermittently moving in and out — one moment there would be a bit of sun and shortly after fog would move through the trees. I wanted to make a photograph that contained the complexity of this place and which caught the highlights of light on the edge of the trunk, so I waited for the light to intensify a bit before making the exposure.
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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