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.

On The Phone

On The Phone
A man leans against concrete wall to talk on his phone.

On The Phone. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A man leans against concrete wall to talk on his phone.

This area of San Francisco is a favorite of mine when doing street photography. There’s nothing remarkable about the street that would attract most viewers, but several things can give it photographic potential. Oddly, one feature is that there isn’t a lot there, at least not during the daytime, so people are either moving through quickly or else they are sort of hanging out like this fellow. There are also quite a few relatively plane and/or geometric surfaces here, plus the light is mostly soft and indirect.

The photograph is an example of how transient subjects and compositions can be in street photography. I spotted this guy talking on his phone from across the street. It was fairly easy to line up a composition that included him, but various things kept intruding on the scene. Passing cars momentarily blocked part of it, and other people walked through the scene. But after a few seconds of waiting — and a few other frames that intentionally included other passers-by — the stage was empty and I was able to make a photograph when he was the only person in the frame.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Central Valley Silo, Detail

Central Valley Silo, Detail
Close-up view of a California Central Valley silo

Central Valley Silo, Detail. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Close-up view of a California Central Valley silo.

My acquaintance with this location goes back to an important day a number of years ago — the first time I went out to seriously photograph California migratory birds. Earlier that week I had a chance encounter with a colleague in the coffee cart line at my college, and she happened to mention a California Central Valley location where sandhill cranes congregate. It really hadn’t crossed my mind to photograph birds — I was most definitely not the birder type — but based on nothing more than her mention of this place I headed out a few days later… and was entranced by what I found. (My ignorance of birds was impressive at that point. For example, only later did I realize that I had photographed a beautiful flock of tundra swans overhead. I probably thought that they were just more geese!)

On that visit I did something that has become a standard part of my bird photography forays — I photographed other subjects! Heading down a narrow country road through agricultural country I came upon flooded rice (I think!) fields next to a group of silos, and I made a few photographs of the two subjects juxtaposed. This close-up photograph features the same silos I photographed on that first visit to “bird country.”


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.


All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Bridges, Mission Creek Channel

Bridges, Mission Creek Channel
Bridge structures over the Mission Creek Channel, San Francisco

Bridges, Mission Creek Channel. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Bridge structures over the Mission Creek Channel, San Francisco.

This is (yet another!) part of San Francisco that is undergoing a rapid transformation as the real estate costs skyrocket and a new generation of quite wealthy people move into the City… and developers and businesses do what they do in response to these changes.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the location from which I made this photograph was not exactly a high rent district. It is along the CalTrain commuter track right-of-way at the end of a long inlet, the Mission Creek Channel. There are still a few house boats docked along the inlet but everything else around here is new or about to be new — with the exception of the freeway whose supports form the vertical component of this scene. In the distance along the left edge fo the frame many new condos and apartments are visible. Out of sight to the right is the Mission Bay Area, where in a few years empty lots disappeared and were replaced by — you guessed it! — more apartments and condos, plus various business and related concerns. If you want to see what San Francisco was… go soon!


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | FacebookEmail

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.


All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Intertwined Trunks

Intertwined Trunks
Tightly laced tree trunks, Southern Sierra Nevada

Intertwined Trunks. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tightly laced tree trunks, Southern Sierra Nevada.

This photograph took some time to arrive in this form. Originally there were two versions of the subject — one was a vertical format version in black and white while the other was a horizontal format color renditions. (If you look around on my website you should be able to find both of those.) I always liked the abstract flow of the portrait-orientation black and white photograph, but I also liked the unusual coloration in the landscape-orientation color versions. And — duh! — it only took me several years to decide that what I really wanted to do was combine that flow and those colors in this version! Sometimes it is not obvious, at least not to me, how I will ultimately “see” a photograph until quite some time after I push the shutter release button.

The photograph explores something that has long intrigued me about high country trees in the Sierra Nevada. While they are, obviously, living things, they live on time scales that are much longer than we know. Even these “stunted” (to use the common description) high elevations trees, despite their relatively small size, are often many hundreds of years old. As such, they seem to me to occupy an intermediate state between our shorter frame of reference of “living” and the much longer time scale of geology. In some cases the trees take on a character that almost seems closer to that of rock. The colors in the photograph may also warrant some explanation, since they may seem unusual for trees. In typical light, these trees would mostly appear to be a combination of grays and browns, but I these trunks were in deep shade and illuminate by late-day light spilling in from the very blue sky.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | FacebookEmail

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.


All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.