G Dan Mitchell Photography

Last Day of Summer, Last Flowers of Summer. Calero Hills, California. September 21, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Last day of summer with new and old buds on early autumn foliage in the Calero Hills, California.

I was out early in the morning on the last day of summer 2008, photographing at one of my favorite nearby locations in the Calero Hills, when I found these interesting plants for a small pond. They show an interesting range of colors, from the yellow of a few remaining buds to the browns of the old and dried flowers – and seem to sort of capture this transitional time of the year.

keywords: calero, park, santa clara, county, summer, last day, nature, california, usa, plant, flower, bud, brown, green, new, old, dry, foliage

G Dan Mitchell :: Sep.30.2008 :: Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature :: No Comments »

Poison Oak Leaves, Last Day of Summer. Calero Hills, California. September 21, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Poison oak leaves on the last day of summer against a backgrouind of branches and early autumn colors – Calero Hills, California.

My last-day-of-summer morning hike at Calero Park began early and in cloudy weather – but the overcast saturated the colors on some of the early fall colors, including the leaves on this poison oak bush on a grassy hillside.

Yes, I was careful not to get too close! I shot this with a telephoto lens…

keywords: calero, park, santa clara, county, summer, last day, nature, california, usa, plant, flora, poison oak, leaf, branch, seed, nature, autumn, red, fall, branch, twig, hills, stock

G Dan Mitchell :: Sep.29.2008 :: Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature :: No Comments »

RSS feed subscribers may have just seen a series of posts including the same photo. An explanation is in order. I’m experimenting with a new way to post and host new photographs, and I had to make several posts to work out some formatting issues. Thanks for your understanding.

G Dan Mitchell :: Sep.28.2008 :: Site News :: No Comments »

West Face of Mount Whitney, Guitar Lake, Evening. Sequoia National Park, California. August 10, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Last light strikes the west face of Mount Whitney over Guitar Lake, Sequoia National Park, California.

Near the end of my early August 2008 trans-Sierra pack trip from Crescent Meadow to Whitney Portal we found ourselves at Guitar Lake, the traditional base camp for west side approaches to Mount Whitney. We arrived fairly early to set up camp, and after lazing around and finally getting dinner it was time to do some photography – so I took my equipment and headed to the outlet of the lake where I made this photograph as the last sun hit the peak and was reflected in the lake.

(A hint for those who pay attention to and enjoy such things… There is a "triangle" theme at work here, and not just in the peak. :-)

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.

G Dan Mitchell :: Sep.28.2008 :: Commentary :: No Comments »

I’ve shared a post or two over the past couple of days about some site issues that I’ve been dealing with. For example, earlier I posted about the disappearance of images from the RSS feed – unfortunate, but it has to happen for a while until I work out some server load issues.

I’ve made a few other changes today. Some of them are “under the hood” and are not directly visible -some caching features may speed up the site a bit, for example. Others are visible – for example, I have removed the “tab bar” from the top of the page and replaced it with simple links in the sidebar. The gallery has also been changed a bit, mostly by decreasing the size of thumbnails and the number of images that appear on each page. And there are more to come: soon the full-size versions of posted photographs will be reduced slightly and the fancy script that opens them on top of the page may go away.

Thanks for your understanding as I make these changes.

G Dan Mitchell :: Sep.27.2008 :: Site News :: No Comments »

I usually don’t post about it when one of my photographs is used in a publication, but this one is special to me. Heyday Books, noted publisher of many titles connected with California and the west, is releasing a new book about one of my favorite authors, Wallace Stegner.

Few authors understood this place as well as Stegner, and even fewer could write about it in fiction and non-fiction as he could. So you can imagine how pleased I was when Heyday contacted me about using one of my photographs of the quintessential central California oak/grassland on the cover. You can see an announcement of the book’s release on the Heyday Books New Releases page.

G Dan Mitchell :: Sep.27.2008 :: Commentary :: 2 Comments »

Those who follow this site, either directly or via the RSS feed, may have noticed some “issues” during the past week. I’ve been working to deal with some hosting issues and this has caused some problems – and they may not be over just yet.

Those who follow the site via the feed, in particular, may wonder where the photo thumbnails have gone. I hope to restore them before long, but for now your best bet is to click on the article’s title link and visit the site to see them.

Thanks for your patience.

Dan

G Dan Mitchell :: Sep.27.2008 :: Commentary :: No Comments »