Tag Archives: wildflower

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

Sierra Lupine, Spring

July 20, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A dense patch of Sierra Nevada lupine, backlit by spring morning sun.

In spring the lupine flowers can bloom profusely in open areas in the Sierra foothills. We passed this small field of lupines along a roadside on the way to Yosemite Valley – and the stop probably made us late for a bit of wonderful early morning light in the Valley. But sometimes it is more important to photograph what you see here and now than to race past on the way to what you might find later. (That bit of advice is not worth as much as it might seem since sometimes precisely the opposite ends up being the right choice!)

These flowers were growing in a burned area, so there was plenty of sunlight to encourage their strong growth and large lupine plants grew thickly here. Them morning light was still low enough – and somewhat muted by a bit of high cloudiness, if I recall correctly, so that I could get down low and shoot with the flowers backlit. In order to make some sense out of the confusion of colorful flowers and plants, I decided to use a longer focal length lens and a relatively large aperture so that I could isolate the foreground flowers against the blurred background of plants that were farther away.

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

Golden Desert-Snapdragon

July 10, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Golden Desert-Snapdragon plant emerges from rocky terrain, Death Valley National Park

This is another photograph from a Death Valley trip I made back in 2010, “rediscovered” while going through old raw files near the end of 2012. The photograph was made along the roadside near a popular, even iconic, Death Valley location early one morning, during a spring that followed a much wetter than usual winter. During my visit I managed to catch the beginning of the impressive blooming of wildflowers that almost invariably follows such weather, as the desert plants take full advantage of the moisture and do everything in their power to reproduce. During the course of my visit, which lasted less than a week, I watch bare hillsides transition into flower-covered hillsides, and it seemed that some new plant was growing in almost every place that a plant might grow.

This plant is, obviously, quite small. You might have overlooked it and some of the nearby plants if you did not slow down and look a bit more closely. I only noticed the new plants after stopping on the other side of the road and looking around a bit. Once I did so, I saw a lot of wildflower color in this otherwise barren and rock place. This is on the verge of being a “belly flower” – one so small and so close to the ground that you must get down on your belly to photograph it!

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

Brown-eyed Evening Primrose

July 9, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

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!

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

Lupine, Sierra Nevada

May 7, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A thick patch of spring lupine flowers high in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Range, California.

We had time for only a one-day trip to Yosemite, timed to coincide with the peak of the dogwood bloom season in the Valley. We left very early – way before dawn – with a plan of arriving in the Valley not too long after the sun came up. (This time of year, arriving by dawn in the Valley would require a 2:00 a.m. start time – and, in some ways, the Valley itself isn’t so much a dawn photography subject.) After we entered the park on highway 120 I started looking for some dogwood trees that often blossom a bit later – since the light was good here it would make more sense to stop and shoot that to keep driving to arrive further on when the light wasn’t as good.

We saw a couple of trees thick with flowers, and quickly turned around to drive back to them. We spent some time photographing these trees and then moved on. (Unlike in a typical year, there was no snow at the junction with the still-closed Tioga Pass Road, and areas that would usually be full of run-off water seemed largely dry.) The area, burned twice in recent years, along the road as it descends toward the Valley is often a good place to find wildflowers. I wasn’t expecting too much in this drought year, and for the most part I was right – but at a turn-off we suddenly came upon a very large patch of beautiful lupines and stopped to photograph. I’m crazy about shooting into the light, so I got down low and photographed these flowers with the light coming from almost directly behind.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: wildflower

Sierra Lupine, Spring

Like this:

Golden Desert-Snapdragon

Like this:

Brown-eyed Evening Primrose

Like this:

Lupine, Sierra Nevada

Like this:

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.

Share this page:

Like this:

Share this page:

Like this:

Share this page:

Like this:

Share this page:

Like this:

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.