Tag Archives: yellow

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Summer Grass, Calero Hills

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Summer Grass, Calero Hills

Summer Grass, Calero Hills. Calero Hills, California. August 14, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dry summer grasses growing near Castillero Pond at the Calero Hills, California.

In this photograph – yes, from the same series from Castillero Pond – I wanted to isolate the light colored grass seeds from the background, and try to reveal the very delicate stems of the grass and other dry plants. The background was essentially the same color as these subjects and was also terribly detailed – so I used a very narrow depth of field to reduce the background detail to an amorphous blur. Although it might not seem like your typical macro lens, I photographed this with a 100-400mm zoom at 400mm!

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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keywords: calero, hills, santa clara, county, park, morning, summer, grass, flora, pond, castillero, plant, nature, california, usa, plant, dry, brown, golden, yellow, twig, stick, stem, seed, pod, bokeh, blur, background, tall, thin, stock

Photographs: Nature

Detail, Summer Grasses

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Detail, Summer Grasses

Detail, Summer Grasses. Castillero Pond, Calero Hills, California. August 14, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Close-up photograph of summer grasses growing at Castillero Pond, California.

A second photo in the sequence I made on this morning at Castillero Pond in the Calero Hills oak/grassland in northern California. (The terrain and plants are typical of vast areas of central California as well.) These large grasses were growing along the edge of the pond. Unlike most of the grasses, which by now have gone completely dry in California, there were still mostly green since they had the pond as a source of moisture.

I made what might strike some as an odd lens choice for this series. Virtually all of them were shot with a 100-400mm zoom at 400mm. The idea was to get a very narrow depth of field and then throw both foreground and background way out of focus. Sometimes people think that the only way to do this is by using lenses with very large aperture, but an equally (and in some cases more) effective method is to use a very long focal length. This can provide even nicer bokeh than the large aperture approach in many cases.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Web: G Dan Mitchell Photography
Twitter: http://twitter.com/gdanmitchell
Friendfeed: http://friendfeed.com/gdanmitchell
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/gdanmitchell

keywords: calero, hills, santa clara, county, park, morning, summer, grass, flora, pond, castillero, plant, nature, california, usa, macro, close-up, stem, twig, blade, green, brown, yellow, shadow, bokeh, dense, texture, curve, pattern, dry, stock

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Cattails, Morning Light

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Cattails, Morning Light

Cattails, Morning Light. Calero Hills, California. August 14, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Summer cattails in morning light at Castillero Pond, Calero Hills, California.

OK, this time no alpine scene from high meadows near the crest of the Sierra – instead a cattail growing along the bank of a small pond perhaps ten miles from my home at a place where I frequently hike. This morning I decided to get up early and head out here with no particular photographic goal in mind. When I arrived at the pond I thought I might photograph some birds – in fact, I just missed photographing my local egret, which flew away just as I was getting out my camera. So, instead of photographing the birds – and instead of continuing on for a longer morning hike – I spent more than an hour here photographing the cattails and patterns of summer grasses in the morning light.

Yesterday I visited SF MOMA to see two photographic shows – the photographs of Richard Avedon in one and the photographs of Ansel Adams and paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe in the other. As I looked at the out of focuse patterns of grasses, such as those in the background of this photograph, I thought about the colors and patterns of the O’Keeffe paintings.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Web: G Dan Mitchell Photography
Twitter: http://twitter.com/gdanmitchell
Friendfeed: http://friendfeed.com/gdanmitchell
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/gdanmitchell

keywords: calero, hills, santa clara, county, park, morning, summer, grass, flora, pond, castillero, plant, nature, california, usa, light, blue, gold, brown, yellow, green, bokeh, stalk, seed, stock

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Lupine, Upper Sabrina Basin

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Lupine, Upper Sabrina Basin
“Lupine, Upper Sabrina Basin” — A lush lupine-filled meadow along the outlet stream from Hungry Packer Lake near Picture Peak, high in the Sabrina Basin – John Muir Wilderness, Sierra Nevada, California.

We had hiked up through this meadow filled with plants and wildflowers earlier in the day while walking a circuit that included Hungry Packer Lake (beyond the saddle seen in the distance and below Picture Peak), Moonlight Lake, and Sailor Lake. At that time the early afternoon light had been far too harsh for photography, so I made plans to be back here early in the evening. I had hoped for some “golden hour” light, but I have to admit that I could see that a ridge to the right was going to cast a shadow here too early for that. Fortunately, the light on the peak came from the side such that it wasn’t as much brighter as it might otherwise have been, and it seemed like it might be possible to capture the huge dynamic range of this scene.

That last point brings up a difficult technical issue with this photograph – that tremendously large dynamic range. Although my eyes/brain could take in the full scene while standing there, no camera that I’d be carrying on the trail can possibly deal with this in a single shot. In the foreground the meadow plants were in early evening/late afternoon shade while the cloud above the peak was brightly lit by the direct sun. In the film days the only real option would have been to use a graduated neutral density (GND) filter to reduce the light from the sky. However, with digital capture we have another alternative – capturing several exposures of the scene optimized for the bright and dark areas and then combining them in post-production. That is precisely what I determined to do here.

In this case I made a main exposure that handled the middle of the dynamic range of the scene. I also made two more; one optimized to barely contain the brightest levels in the cloud and the second optimized to capture all of the details in the darker foreground meadow. The three versions of the scene were combined in post-processing to recreate something much closer to what I actually saw. (Yes, this was a complex photograph to realize!) in addition to using three exposures, I was also able to carefully customize the boundaries between them issuing masks – both of which would be impossible with a GND filter.

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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

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