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

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...

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...