Tag Archives: usa

Photographs: Nature

Lupine And Paintbrush

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The flowers of lupine and paintbrush plants, Pinnacles National Park
The flowers of lupine and paintbrush plants, Pinnacles National Park

Lupine And Paintbrush. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The flowers of lupine and paintbrush plants, Pinnacles National Park.

I found these wildflowers — lupine and paintbrush — along the High Peaks Trail and Pinnacles National Park on a recent visit this spring. I had gone there to try to catch the tail end of the spring wildflower season, which was quite good this year following heavier-than-average rainfall. I also felt like it was time for a good hike over some mountainous terrain. This route gave me both.

While wildflower photography constitutes a small portion of my work, I’ve been attracted to the subject ever since I started going into outdoor places decades ago. This year, for the first time, I finally have a macro lens, arguably the ideal tool for this subject. My ideal wildflower subject probably has some combination of the following: an interesting flower or flowers, perhaps some colors that are both striking and interact well, soft light, a background that is either not distracting or which can be made so with focusing techniques. This one group of flowers gave me most of that. In an area that was largely in sun and mostly featured clumps of individual types of flowers, here I found the red paintbrush and the blue/purple lupine juxtaposed in a narrow band of shade.

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.

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

Creosote Bushes, Dunes

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Creosote Bushes, Dunes
Creosote plants and soft, blue-tinted pre-sunrise light on Death Valley sand dunes.

Creosote Bushes, Dunes. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Creosote plants and soft, blue-tinted pre-sunrise light on Death Valley sand dunes.

No, I’m still not done with the Death Valley photographs! This shouldn’t be a surprise — I was there twice so far this year. Both trips were made primarily for the purpose of photography, and I had a total of about eight days to do this work. I made this photograph on the second visit, during the first week of April when the seasonal change takes off, the weather begins to noticeably warm, and when the plants tend to come back to life.

We were out in the dunes reasonably early on this morning, and I made this photograph before the sun had yet risen, in that quiet and still time before dawn when the light is soft and still has a bluish cast. Shortly after we entered this area of the dunes I climbed to a ridge of sand overlooking a large area and set up. Most of the photographs I made here on this morning came from essentially this one spot — I probably didn’t move more than 25 feet from the initial spot as I looked to refine compositions. I loved the foreground line of creosote plants. Most of them seemed to be dead or dormant, though the plant at the left was turning green and sending out new 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 and Amazon.

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Photographs: Nature

White Globe Lily… And Bug

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White Globe Lily... And Bug
An insect on the top of a white globe lily flower

White Globe Lily… And Bug. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An insect on the top of a white globe lily flower.

Folks who follow my photography may have noted a rather large number of photographs of very small things recently, mostly a lot of wildflowers. This isn’t an entirely new thing for me, as I have photographed and occasionally shared wildflower photographs before. What has changed? Two things. First, I’m married to “the Georgia O’Keeffe of photographer photography, and she has a macro lens almost permanently attached to her cameras so that she can photograph this subject. Second, I finally decided to spring for my own macro lens, and I’ve been out trying to learn more about its use.

When viewed through the macro lens, photographs of flowers often end up being photographs of other things, too — bits of pollen, spider webs, dusk and dirt, brown areas, holes… and in this case, one black bug of significant size. I misidentified this flower for years, and I was grateful to a viewer who recently set me straight. It is a white globe lily. (If you want to understand just one of the reasons that I’m often challenged by naming such things, it is apparently also known as “fairy lantern, white fairy lantern, pink fairy lantern, lantern of the fairies, globe lily, white globe-tulip, alabaster tulip, Indian bells, satin bells, snowy lily-bell, and snow drops!”)

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.

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

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

Sand Storm and Dunes

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Sand Storm and Dunes
A sand storm darkens the sky above dunes in Death Valley National Park.

Sand Storm and Dunes. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A sand storm darkens the sky above dunes in Death Valley National Park.

By now I’m perhaps starting to sound a bit like a broken record when I describe the experience of sand storms like this one, but bear with me (at least) one more time. We had arrived here after a couple of hours of chasing the atmospheric conditions produced by this sand storm. At this spot I stood in the shelter of our vehicle, with the strong winds at my back, and photographed straight into the area that was the source of the storm that was filling the terrain with dust all the way up into the Panamint Range.

This was an “awesome” experience in the classic sense of provoking a sense of awe in the face of the power of this event, and it was (as it always is) a reminder of how small we are by comparison. This photograph looks across a section of playa towards sand dunes being whipped by the winds. Clouds of sand and dust were being picked up and carried swiftly across the landscape and into the sky, nearly obliterating the sunlight coming from the other side of the cloud. (As you look at this, imagine the clouds of dust streaming from left to right across the scene.)

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.

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