Yosemite and More

 I spent some time in various North Coast Redwood Parks. You won't  see any photos of the Giant Redwoods, kinda intimidating. But there is a lot of interesting stuff if you just look around. On this hike I walked in and out of the fog. A green carpet of ferns underneath 2nd growth Redwoods Lots of interesting flowers Then I came upon this old stump, about 15 feet tall, with a few very interesting and different fungi for which I couldn't find a 'common' name. The first four where on the same tree and I didn't find them anywhere else. And one little tiny one on another log. The head is about the size of a nickel. Go, See, Look Down, Stay Safe, Enjoy and Photograph Dave

 As I mentioned in my previous post I went on a quick trip to the  Northern California Coast. My last post was of the flowers I saw. This post is of other stuff!! Go, See, Enjoy, Photograph and Stay Safe Dave

 As usual I only had a little time on the North Coast, it always seem I  have someplace I have to be. Normally I go straight to the State and Federal  Redwood Parks and skip the coast itself. This time I stopped at a lot of the beaches and parks along the way. I think I hit it just at the right time for flowers, I only knew the names of  a few so I just lumped them all under one label. Go, See, Enjoy, Photograph and Stay Safe. Dave

The North Coast Redwoods are a contrast of very large/tall and  very tiny. The redwoods themselves are of course gigantic but many of the other plants are very small, especially the flowers that spot the forest floor. This first one is example of the 'large'. I changed it to black and white to highlight the texture of the bark. Next is a couple of the tiny. These flowers were less than a dime in size. Now the tall. Light hits the forest floor only where there is a break in the canopy and then it may last for a very short time as the sun sweeps across the sky. I didn't do anything the add or subtract the lighting. This is  probably my favorite of this set. The largest plants I saw on the floor were these leaves. They grew only where  there was trickling water in small creeks. There are a number of elk herds in the area. You see a number of signs along the way warning of elk crossing. I spotted th...

My part time job took me to the North Coast a while back. After fulfilling my obligations I took a little me time andphotographed the Eureka area, Redwoods and Lithia Park in Ashland Oregon. This bunch is of the North Coast. My first nights stay was in Eureka, I just finished dinner and decided to take a little drive. I waited about a half hour for this sunset to develop. Went back to work the next morning, afterwards I headed up the coast and stopped along  the way to take some coast shots. I'm not a sandy beach kind of guy. I like the rough and  tumble of the rugged North Coast. Okay so the following are of a fairly tame area of beach. I liked the contrast of this one large  rock in a large area of beach. Incidentally this is the only rock of it's kind that I could see and it was quite a bit away from any cliffs. Something else that surprised me was the fact that there were plants growing in the sand and had not been trampl...

I really do need to do a better job of posting. My main problem is I'm not a great fan of editing. And sometime you look at your 'great' photos and say, meh! This is part of my vacation to the North Coast this last summer. Go down a  little and you'll see my post from the Redwoods, previous to that I visited the Lassen Park area. Anyway...........Last time I visited the North Coast (about 25 years ago), Eureka to Crescent City the ocean was angry and the waves were huge and crashing. This time they were as flat as a piece of paper. Somewhat disappointing, in that regard anyway. This first one is taken at the Crescent City Lighthouse on Battery Point. More on the lighthouse in a sec. This was taken from under the pier (obviously) being very careful not  to bang my camera against the rocks or my head against the pier. As you can see the water is smooth as glass. Even the Klamath River was smooth as it entered the Pa...

A while back I went over to the Northern California Coast, specifically the Coast Redwoods area of Eureka and Crescent City. There are some great hikes in the Redwoods State and National Parks. The redwoods themselves are awe inspiring and can induce a soar neck from looking up all the time.  One of the problems I faced was trying to produce photos that captured their majesty. Regular lenses couldn't capture their size and  wide angle lenses would distort them and in turn push them back into the photo and reduce their size.  What's a guy to do??  So while I did take a lot of 'tree' photos I decided to concentrate on the smaller things in the forest and on the floor.  The trees themselves do a good job of shading the forest floor and being  on the coast there is a lot of moisture. great for growing ferns and fungi. The size of this fungi is just a little larger than a quarter. You have to look pretty closely...