Return of the Natives: California Wildflowers by David Leaser
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In Return of the Natives, award-winning photographer David Leaser continues his ambitious project to memorialize the grandeur of our botanical world and bring heightened awareness to California’s vanishing treasures, the wildflowers which once blanketed the mountains, deserts and valleys of the region.
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Return of the Natives: California Wildflowers by David Leaser
- 1. David Leaser Exploring the Beauty of California’s Native Flora
- 3. Amboy Crater
- 4. Carrizo Plain National Monument
- 7. Return of the Natives
- 26. The Inspiration for my work
- 27. A day at the Huntington changed everything www.davidleaser.com | facebook.com/davidleaserfineart
- 28. A plane ticket to paradise: The Amazon www.davidleaser.com | facebook.com/davidleaserfineart
- 29. I was drawn to the rainforest floor www.davidleaser.com | facebook.com/davidleaserfineart
- 30. But I could not achieve the vision in my mind I wanted this . . . . . . but I got this www.davidleaser.com | facebook.com/davidleaserfineart
- 31. The search for innovation begins • NASA had been to Mars • Robotics were entering the photography space • New innovations in software were changing everything www.davidleaser.com | facebook.com/davidleaserfineart
- 32. The moment I knew I nailed it! www.davidleaser.com | facebook.com/davidleaserfineart
- 33. Camera Essentials Camera Choose maximum megapixels Must have a USB connection Tripod Make it heavy! Should have a spirit level Macro lens 1:1 ratio I use a 60 mm inexpensive lens www.davidleaser.com | facebook.com/davidleaserfineart
- 34. Studio Supplies Posing table small, spins Modeling light LED, cool Flashlight focusing Background velvet, paper Clamps multipurpose Plamp stabilize flower Floral wire shape flower Floral foam Oasis, Aquafoam Vase clear Floral water tubes with thin ends www.davidleaser.com | facebook.com/davidleaserfineart
- 35. Lighting Subject Flashes vs. ringlights Background For white / light backgrounds Subject Fill Place on a tripod or table stand Modifiers You must scatter and diffuse the subject light! www.davidleaser.com | facebook.com/davidleaserfineart
- 36. Computer setup Cables Tethering Software Stacking Software Editing Software Enlarging Software Sharpening Software Zerene Stacker www.davidleaser.com | facebook.com/davidleaserfineart
- 37. Setting up your subject • Audition the flowers • Place in small vase • Examine closely • Treat like a movie star www.davidleaser.com | facebook.com/davidleaserfineart
- 38. Setting up your camera • ISO low • Flash speed to sync with camera set fastest to avoid blur • Flash at highest power setting necessary • Aperture (in the middle of range) • Focus set to manual (install eyepiece magnifier) www.davidleaser.com | facebook.com/davidleaserfineart
- 39. Thank you! David Leaser www.davidleaser.com | facebook.com/davidleaserfineart Email me at david@davidleaser.com Download this presentation at:
- 40. Finding California Wildflowers • Anza-Borrego Desert: Located south of Palm Springs, Anza- Borrego State Park often puts on the best desert wildflower show in California. Find out how to get there. Bloom season is January through March, so check this year's bloom status before you go. • Death Valley: It takes a perfect combination of conditions, for wildflowers to bloom in the desert, and it doesn't happen every year. When it does, it's usually between mid-February and mid- April. Death Valley's wildflower displays are eye-popping, especially since they occur in a landscape so devoid of color the rest of the year. This guide includes all the details. • Valley of the Oaks: With the land around it protected from over- cultivation and never overcrowded, the area near Mission San Antonio west of King City is a great place for spring wildflowers, and we've got the photos to prove it. Bloom time is generally March to April. • Antelope Valley: In a good year, the carpets of orange-hued California Poppies… well… (to use a well-worn phrase) you'd have to be there. Our photos might give you an idea, though. General bloom time is mid-February and lasts through mid-May. Get all the details. • Hite Cove Trail: Wildflowers bloom a little later in the Sierras, following the wave of blossoms in the desert. Hite Cove Trail near Yosemite is one of the most spectacular places in the Sierras in late spring, and some say it's the best wildflower hike in California. Take a look at these photos and we think you'll agree. Best time to go is March through May, and you can find out everything you need here. • North Table Mountain: An ecological reserve near Oroville (north of Sacramento), North Table Mountain is decked out in more than 100 kinds of wildflowers in a good season. Bloom starts in February and peaks in March and April. Guided tours are offered then. More details on their website, where can also sign up for a guided tour. • Eastern Sierras: Wild iris flowers come out between late May and July, depending on elevation (earlier in Bishop, later for Mammoth). Where cattle are grazing, you'll sometimes find them nibbling the petals. http://gocalifornia.about.com/od/topcalifornia/a/california-wildflowers.htm
- 41. Native Plant Resources • The Garden Growers Nursery at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden 1212 Mission Canyon Road Santa Barbara, CA 93105 (805) 682-4726 http://www.sbbg.org/learn-discover/gardening-with-natives/garden- growers-nursery • Las Pilitas Nursery 8331 Nelson Way Escondido, 92026 www.laspilitas.com Wholesale and retail, container plants. 100% California native plants. • Matilija Nursery 8225 Waters Road Moorpark, CA 93021 (805) 523-8604 www.matilijanursery.com Retail and wholesale nursery specializing in Californian native plants. • Moon Mountain Wildflowers P.O. Box 725 Carpinteria, CA 93014-0725 (805) 684-2565 Mail order seed. • Moosa Creek Nursery Valley Center, CA 92082 (760) 749-3216 www.moosacreeknursery.com Wholesale growers Please see their web site for retail availability. • San Luis Creek Nursery 955 El Camino Real San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 Phone: (805) 788-0874 Fax: (805) 788-0875 Wholesale and retail by appointment only. Specializing in CA native garden and restoration plants. • Santa Barbara Natives Inc. 14900 Calle Real Gaviota, California 93117 805-698-4994 Locally propagated native plants for Santa Barbara County http://www.sbnatives.com • Theodore Payne Foundation 10459 Tuxford Street Sun Valley, CA 91352 (818) 768-1802 www.theodorepayne.org Retail plants, mail order seed, large seed selection. • Tree of Life Nursery P.O. Box 635 / 33201 Ortega Highway San Juan Capistrano, CA 92693 (949) 728-0685 californianativeplants.com Wholesale & retail container plants, contract collect & grow.
Notes de l'éditeur
- When Juan Crespi, a Franciscan missionary and explorer for the Spanish Empire, first saw California in the late 18th century, he wrote of its amazing landscape: Vast, vivid flower meadows, where acres of a single color reached up to a mile long. Today, only pockets of that vista remain, and most of those flowers now rely on the nursery trade for their survival.
- “At once after setting out, we commenced to find the fields all abloom with different kinds of wildflowers of all colors, so that, as many as were the flowers we had been meeting all along the way and on the Channel, it was not in such plenty as here, for it is all one mass blossom, great quantities of white, yellow, red, purple, and blue ones; many yellow violets or gilly flowers of the sort that are planted in gardens, a great deal of larkspur, poppy and chia in bloom, and what graced the fields most of all was the sight of all the different sorts of colors together.” ~ Juan Crespi, May 7, 1770
- This is a description of the landscape just north of Point Conception during spring about two hundred years ago. Wildflower fields were observed up and down the coast and throughout the Los Angeles region with abundant pasture. Poppy fields were so large they were visible from ships at sea. By the time Los Angeles was settled in the early 1900’s most of this landscape had been transformed by old world grasses and plants brought in with the original colonial explorers. It is now thought that much of the precolonial landscape was not perennial bunch grasses as had been earlier believed, but annual wildflowers, bulbs, corms.
- I’m a photographer, and I’ve gained recognition for putting a spotlight on the rare and exotic in the botanical world. But a few years ago, living in Santa Barbara, I took my family to the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden. I had always thought of native plants as being weedy with non-descript flowers. But on that day, we saw roses with vibrant, almost hot pink, petals. Irises in every color of the rainbow, and tiny meadow flowers with amazing, intricate patterns.
- We decided to grow them out in the garden. And when they began to bloom, I began to photograph them. Here are a dozen of my favorites.
- California poppy At the peak of the blooming season, the orange petals of the California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) seem to cover all 1,745 acres of the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve in northern Los Angeles County. With their brilliant golden-orange flowers and their glaucous leaves, it’s no wonder the beautiful poppies were selected to represent the State of California in 1890. These flowers connect modern Californians with the Native Americans who also revered these flowers. Poppy leaves were used medicinally, the pollen was used cosmetically, and the seeds were used in cooking.
- Matilija With their crepe paper white petals and yellow stamens, Matilija poppies (Romneya coulteri) add a ray of sunshine to the hills of California, where they bloom in the dry scrubland chaparral from Santa Barbara to San Diego. Growing on stems up to eight feet tall, these poppies form buds the size of a walnut which open to massive displays of white flowers throughout the summer. The Matilija poppy was a candidate for state flower and, when you see these magnificent flowers, you will know why. Ultimately, the California poppy won the honor, but Matilija poppies are an unmistakable treasure to Californians.
- Canyon Snow California irises (Iris douglasiana) are among the most beautiful natives to the Golden State. This flower, with its rich white petals and gold undertones, shows the regal nature of these exquisite flowers. The artist photographed this image from a flower he selected in his Santa Barbara home. The cultivar is “Canyon Snow,” which received the prestigious Mitchell Award from the American Iris Society.
- Five Spot This tiny, unusual wildflower is found only on slopes in elevations of California up to 4,000 feet and is most commonly seen in the Sierra Nevada, Sacramento Valley, and along the California Coast Ranges in the San Francisco Bay Area. The small flowers are no bigger than your thumbnail and are unusually decorated with purple spots on the lobes of the petals. The flowers' spots give name to the flower’s common name and evolved to attract bees, its primary pollinators, which feed on the nectar and pollen. The Five Spot (Nemophila maculata) is an annual, bearing flowers in the spring and summer, before disappearing forever. Fortunately, the Five Spot tosses its seeds about before it declines, ensuring a continuing cycle of annual beauty.
- Santa Barbara Rose California’s chaparral and woodlands are home to an exotic flower you would not expect to encounter: The California wild rose. Rosa californica forms a dense, thorny thicket covered with fragrant open-faced flowers in shades of white to deep magenta. The flower in this image was growing in the foothills of Santa Barbara on a bush which bears unusually vivid flowers. These flowers are not just for show: California roses provide invaluable resources. The rose hips were used during World War II for their high vitamin content. Flowers are dried for tea and used in jellies and sauces. The Cahuilla Indians ate the rose buds raw or soaked them in water for drinking. A tea was also made from the roots, and used for colds. And, because the rose hips remain on the plant throughout the winter, they provide food for wildlife during times when little forage is available.
- California Iris California’s native irises (Iris douglasiana) grow in an amazing array of colors and patterns: Eleven species produce flowers in shades of white, yellow, pink, lavender and bi-colored flowers of burgundy and gold. Native from Santa Barbara to the Oregon Coast, these flamboyant flowers arise on knee-high stems in spring, where they grow in the wetter areas of California’s terrain. With its dark purple blossoms, the flower in this image seems to float toward you, engaging you to appreciate its beauty and form.
- Mariposa Lily Native to the California coastal ranges to the Sierra Nevada, the Mariposa lily (Calochortus venustus) grows wild in the open grasslands and mountain meadows from sea level to the highest peaks. Emerging from bulbs in the spring, Mariposa lilies command your attention with their exotic pencil-brush markings and their long, elegant stems.
- Sierra Movado The word iris is Greek for rainbow, a description that fits this Pacific Coast iris beautifully. With its lush pink-purple petals, this flower is a product of cultivation, hybridized from the beautiful native species. With its large, downward arching falls and prominent arms, this flower seems to greet you with a warm reception.
- California Stream Orchid Epipactis gigantea is a species of orchid known by the common names stream orchid, where it grows in locations throughout Central and Northern California, including subalpine forests, foothill woodlands, in chaparral and valley grasslands and of course in wetlands. Reaching up to 2 feet in height, this orchid produces ovate or lance-shaped, heavily veined green leaves that can reach 8 inches long starting in midspring, followed shortly by terminal spikes of as many as a dozen inch-long flowers.
- Sisyrinchium bellum Widely distributed in California from the open, grassy slopes to the Redwood forests, the California Blue Eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium bellum) bears vivid purple and blue flowers on its small, iris-like leaves. But its delicate appearance is deceiving. This tiny flower has adapted to grow throughout the state, from the sandy soils of California’s coastal bluffs to the dry interior grasslands.
- California Prairie Flax With its satiny sky blue flowers and needlelike leaves, these tiny, elegant flowers on graceful 2-foot-tall stems, greet Californians from late spring to mid-summer, only opening when the sun shines on their small faces. These are the flowers which Meriwether Lewis, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, appreciated when he traveled across the American continent in the early 1800s. The California flax (Linum lewisii) has adapted to the harsh, diverse climates of the West, gracing the middle to high elevations from Alaska to southern California, where they blizzards and the desiccating droughts of the California desert.
- Sea Breeze The California seaside daisy (Erigeron glaucus) is native along coastal bluffs, dunes and beaches of California in the coast shrub communities from the Channel Islands to the California’s northern borders and beyond. Growing on small, spreading shrubs, these plants bear flowers with an almost fluorescent glow in shades of purple and pink. In the landscape, these flowers find a short, happy home in the dry, gravel soils of coastal California, where they provide short-lived beauty: Most plants have a lifespan of just a few years.
- Farnsworth's Jewelflower This unusual flower is an uncommon species of flowering plant in the mustard family, endemic to California’s woodlands of the Sierra Nevada foothills. The flower very unusual, appearing on a stem which seems to pierce its leaves. The plant was named for Evalyn Lucille Klein Farnsworth, a foothills cattle rancher and plant collector who first discovered it growing on her land. With its whimsy and oddity, Farnsworth's jewelflower is a true conversation starter.
- Catalina Poppy Native to the Channel Islands off the coast of southern California, these tiny, brilliant yellow poppies (Dendromecon harfordii) cover their glaucous-green bushes throughout the spring and summer, surviving on little or no irrigation. These highly prized flowers grow on bushes which are rare in cultivation and hard to propagate. But in the garden, they thrive with little care, growing to small tree size, offering a ray of sunshine to a dryland landscape and a valuable source of sustenance for nectar-loving insects and birds.
- Santa Barbara Iris The rich burgundy, pink and gold highlights in the California iris (Iris douglasiana) bear testimony to the talents of plantsmen in California, breeding new cultivated plants from California’s native treasures. This flower, with vibrant petals, bears witness to the magnificent beauty of California’s wildlife. This flower was growing at the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden, where is stood out in a sea of irises, waiting for its audition to present itself to you in this image.
- Tidy Tips The small, daisylike flowers of this California native are is found throughout California’s low-elevation dry habitats in California, mostly on grassy slopes and openings in coastal sage scrub chaparral and the High Desert. A member of California’s pring wildflower displays, Tidy Tips (Layia platyglossa) grow during the months of March to June, bearing small symmetrical yellow-ray flowers on prostrate bushes. Tidy Tips are helping to restore the California landscape: this delicate wildflower is used in habitat restoration projects, acting as a pollinator for native insect species and source of seeds for local birds.
- Farewell to Spring In the San Francisco Bay area, godetias (Clarkia amoena) electrify the landscape with their neon-colored petals. Showy is an understatement to describe these flowers which color the grasslands when the spring rains arrive. In the evening, these flowers close, as do many California natives, and open to greet the sun as it rises. These flowers earned their botanical name as an honor to Captain William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Northwest in 1806. Today, many of the 30-odd species of these flowers are nearly gone from the landscape, some, unfortunately, exceedingly rare.
- California Tree Mallow The California tree mallow (Lavatera Purisima) is a stunning example of how Californians revere their plants and seek to incorporate them into their gardens. Ttropical looking shrub which bears this flower is actually a hybrid of two species which are native to California, more garden-tolerant than its parents. The large purple hibiscus-like flowers of this small tree appear continually from spring through summer, bearing iridescent flowers and nectar for butterflies, like the Painted Lady Butterfly and the Northern White Skipper.
- Lighting the subject –Nikon R1C1 Wireless Close-Up Speedlight System Lighting the subject -- Nikon SB-900 AF Speedlights for fill and white backgrounds in the field Lighting the background -- Elinchrom D-Lite-it 4 Light modifiers (softboxes, foil, Lumiquest, umbrellas)