2014 Favorite Photographs

[Favorites collections from previous years: 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008]

Welcome to this collection of some of my favorite photographs from 2014.  I’ll get to the photos in a moment — yes, on this page! — but first a few stories, a shout out or two to fellow photographers and friends, and more…

This year I photographed a wide range of subjects from musicians to street photography to minimalist images to landscapes. It is always a challenge to select a few images from this variety of work, and invariably some photographs I love had to be left out. The group of photographs shown here was chosen because I like them, because they have been popular with others, and because they represent the diversity this year’s work. This year I think I can truthfully say that they range from the sublime to the ridiculous. (See if you can find the ridiculous one!)

Many wonderful places, subjects, and (especially) people were part of this year’s photography. Here is a partial accounting: The year began with photography of perhaps my favorite winter subject, the migratory birds and the often foggy landscape of California’s Central Valley — as always with friends David Hoffman, Charlotte Hoffman, Michael Frye, Claudia Welsh, and, of course, my wife Patricia Emerson Mitchell. Early in the year we traveled to Yosemite for a few days of shooting in conjunction with the opening of the annual Yosemite Renaissance exhibit, which again included some of my work — and in addition to the photography, it was great to see so many photographer/artist friends in the Valley. In the very early spring we had a good visit to Death Valley, one of my favorite and most frequent subjects — where we encountered snow and, for the first time in my life, I photographed wildflowers in a snowstorm! Among the summer highlights was a train trip across the US to spend a week photographing (and eating and much more) in New York City. Near the end of the summer I joined a group of good friends (Charlie Cramer, Keith Walklet, Mike Osborne, Scot Miller, Annette Bottaro-Walklet, Karl Kroeber and a supporting cast of mules and wranglers) for an extended back-country shoot in Yosemite. Fall took me back to the Sierra for nearly a week of aspen color chasing, and then I made my way back to Utah for fall color and visits to some beautiful out of the way places and ultimately to meet up with family. (Thanks to fellow photographers on that trip: David Hoffman, Guy Tal, Colleen Miniuk-Sperry, Michael Gordon, Charlie Cramer, Bruce Hucko — and to my cousin Barbara and her husband Russ and a few in-laws I met up with near the end of the trip in Zion.) My biggest photographic focus during the fall was the completion of my three-year project to photograph professional classical musicians — and I’m very grateful to the musicians, conductors, management, and staff of the San Jose Chamber Orchestra and Symphony Silicon Valley for their incredible cooperation.

A big “thank you!” to all of you who have followed my photographs here and on social media during the past year, and especially to fellow photographers (a few of whom appear in one of the photos!) that I’ve been fortunate to work with and count as friends. I’m grateful for your support! If this is your first visit to my site, consider bookmarking it, using the sidebar form to subscribe by email and/or…

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Wishing everyone Good Light in 2015!

G Dan Mitchell

(Click on any photograph below to switch to a larger scrolling view for best viewing. And I would love to hear what you think — which are your favorites in the group and so forth. Thanks!)


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

16 thoughts on “2014 Favorite Photographs”

  1. An example of the danger of having too many ongoing tabs open is discovering I never did comment here as I had intended. I enjoy visiting your blog from time to time and seeing what you’re doing, Dan, partly because your work does not seem to suffer from over-artificiality like much of what is out there. I like many of these, the first one at dawn, the Panamint Range and the Banjo guys best.

    1. Thanks David! Coming from a Hyde family member, your comments (and discussion) always mean a lot to me!

      The banjo guys is a real fun photograph. You might even recognize one or two of the folks in that one. It was in the Yosemite Renaissance exhibit this year, too.

      Take care,

      Dan

    1. Thanks, Guy — and it was my great pleasure to share a few days in the Utah outback with you and the gang. I hope I can meet you out there again some time!

      Dan

    1. Thank, Michael. I’m to surprised you gravitate to the Central Valley photos… since you were there when I made at least some of them! But that is a wonderful place. The banjo players… well, stick around enough, and something similar might happen to you!

      Dan

  2. Fantastic set, Dan! My favorites are you Death Valley images, but everything else is great. The gingko leaves also stand out, and I generally enjoy your classical music work. Here’s to another great year!

    1. Thanks, Jackson. Thanks for picking out some favorites. In some ways the ginkgo leaves photo couldn’t be more different than the DEVA shots (the ginkgo were shot handheld and quite spontaneously) but they all seem to fit together somehow to me.

      Dan

    1. Thanks, Elizabeth. The banjo players photo may have been the biggest surprise of the year, and I’m glad I was there and thought of the potential of the shot!

      Dan

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