All posts by G Dan Mitchell

G Dan Mitchell, photographer and visual opportunist focusing on the Pacific coast, the Sierra Nevada, redwood forests, California oak/grasslands, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography and more. Posting daily photographs since 2005, along with articles, reviews, news, and ideas.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Big Wong Restaurant

August 26, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

New York City street scene, as people pass in front of the Big Wong Restaurant in Chinatown

To an outsider, there are many things that seem to characterize New York City — the noise, the energy, the density of people, the constant motion, the often gritty character of many areas, the unique neighborhoods that bump into one another, the huge number of people out walking, the food, and much more. I’m more familiar with the famous San Francisco Chinatown (which is at least as crowded), and New York’s Chinatown feels vaguely familiar but also quite different. It certainly seems, for the most part, a lot less geared to tourists.

We went there for dinner one evening. After a week of too many expensive dinners we were looking for something both good and less expensive, so we ended up at a place near here that one of our group knew about. After dinner we went out on the streets, where it was now close to twilight. We decided to wander up towards Little Italy, and on the way we quickly passed though more of Chinatown’s narrow streets, and I managed to slow up our progress by stopping to photograph people and storefronts, including this wonderfully named restaurant with a few people and piles of trash outside on the sidewalk.

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.

Commentary, Events, Locations, Morning Musings

Sierra Nevada Fall Color (Morning Musings 8/25/14)

August 25, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

For various reasons — projects I’m working on, clear signs of the changing seasons, photographs I’ve recently seen — I have been getting into that autumn frame of mind that comes at about this time every year. With that in mind, today’s “morning musings” post is about finding and photographing fall color in the Sierra Nevada. Rather than re-writing the whole thing, I’ll start by pointing you to an extensive guide that I wrote a few years ago and have updated every year since that time — if you are thinking of chasing aspen color this fall you may want to take a look: “Sierra Nevada Fall Color — Coming Sooner Than You Think”

If things evolve on a relatively typical schedule, eastern Sierra aspen color is perhaps about six weeks away. I have been photographing this subject for a while now, and it is one of my favorites. I intend to be out there again this fall.

One popular game at this time of year is to predict/guess when the colors will arrive and how good they will be. I’m fully aware that I’ve been wrong quite a few times, and my increasing knowledge of this subject has perhaps only made me more aware of how unpredictable this can be. However, this year I have to wonder about the effects on the trees from our three-year California drought, which has reached an extreme level all across the state this year. I don’t know what the results will be, but I’m considering some possibilities:

During the last two years it seemed to me that I was seeing the onset of color move a bit earlier in the season. I have to wonder if we may see stressed trees go into fall mode a bit on the early side this year.
Some people say that they are seeing a few aspen groves turning brownish-yellow already and looking like they are drying out.
Also during the last few dry years we have seen some anomalous early season storms, and I wonder if that pattern will continue. This can affect the season in various ways if it happens. On the negative side, leaves can blow down early. On the positive side, snow and aspens can make a beautiful pair.

As always, to the extent possible, I like to remain flexible about when and where I’ll photograph the aspens, and I watch the evolving conditions to see what this season may bring. How about you? What are your fall color plans?

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

New York Street, Child with Toy Car

August 25, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A child playing with a toy car on the sidewalk of a busy Manhattan street

I made this photograph on my first real day of shooting in Manhattan. We had arrived the night before, late enough that we only had time to take a cab to where we were staying, have a bite to eat (thanks, Timothy and Margaret!), and fall asleep. The next morning we went over to NYU, where Patty was participating in a music conference for the next five days, and after she got registered I was on my own in Manhattan, and on the prowl with a camera for a good part of the next few days. I often started out with very general plans, but then mostly sort of followed my intuitions as I wandered up and down the island. On this first morning I simply headed uptown toward Grand Central Station with my camera at my side, and began to get in the flow of photographing this busy, dense, and compelling place.

When shooting street I often think a bit like the landscape photographer than I am. This means that I find what I think is a visually interesting place, consider how to compose a shot, and then wait until something or someone interesting enters the frame. However, this shot worked more or less the opposite way. I saw this child, incongruously pushing his combination play car and stroller on a section of this very busy urban sidewalk. Fearing that it might be more than a little creepy to walk up and point my camera at this interesting child, I moved closer to the building wall so that I could instead include him near the edge of a shot of the overall street scene. Placing him so close to the lower left corner obviously made for an unusual composition, though I think it is somehow interesting to see him in a position that seems so peripheral to the rest of the scene. I watched to see if he would do anything interesting, and I made the exposure when he leaned over and looked in my direction. Initially I thought that the photograph might be in color, and as I worked with it the bright colors of taxis seemed to complement the cooler tones of the shaded sidewalk area. But there were problems — that interesting yellow also distracted from the child, and his little “car” was a dark shade of blue. In the end, I had a lot more control over the relative tonality of different parts of the scene with this black and white conversion.

Morning Musings

Morning Musing – 8/24/14

August 24, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

This “Morning Musing” post is related to the photograph I shared here earlier this today: “Flooded Field, Winter.” I made this photograph last winter on New Year’s Day, when a group of us (friends who are all involved in photography in one way or another) gathered before dawn at a favorite migratory bird location to again welcome the literal dawn of the new year together.

I am aware that no one else see a photograph in the same way that it is seen by the photographer who made it. The backstory of this image reminds me that the viewer, in a sense, can see it more objectively for what it is as a pure visual image, though he or she may be able be able to share with the photographer some of the implications and connections that such a photograph might evoke. The photographer has a unique internal knowledge of and relationship to the photograph that can never be completely understood by the viewer, even by a viewer who might like the photograph a great deal. When I tell you that the photograph was made on a cold and foggy New Year’s Day, in the company of good friends and photographers, you know more about the context, and this knowledge mights shift the way that you understand the photograph, but I can never take you all the way “there.”

The photograph also reminds me of one other wonderful thought. Fall is coming, and then winter, and soon the birds will return to Central Valley, and my friends and I will meet there once again on mornings much like this one. I can’t wait!

G Dan Mitchell Photography

All posts by G Dan Mitchell

Big Wong Restaurant

Sierra Nevada Fall Color (Morning Musings 8/25/14)

New York Street, Child with Toy Car

Morning Musing – 8/24/14

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.