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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Before The Dust Storm

May 22, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Just after dawn, the precursors of a day of Death Valley dust storms

I’ve been through a number of desert dust storms in and around Death Valley National Park — ranging from minor “dust blowing through the campsite” events to “damaging to my vehicle” events. (The latter was some years back as I left the park and headed out to highway 395 and, as I later found out, drove through record-breaking wind and driving dust and sand, to the permanent distress of my windshield.) It is fair to say that my feelings about such conditions are mixed. Frankly, they are very unpleasant — the dust gets into everything, from clothes to eyes to camera gear, and it is almost impossible to do much of anything if you are inside a really bad storm. In fact, near the end of the day on which I made this photograph we simply had to hunker down indoors for several hours and wait for it to stop. But there can be a kind of terrible beauty in these events as well, and if you are cautious you can photograph them.

I recall a day many years ago when I started to make sense of the antecedent conditions that lead to such storms. It was the final day of a Death Valley visit and I was down along the southeast part of the main valley, when I noticed a kind of fuzzy glow in the atmosphere. I made a few photographs and headed north to leave the park, and within an hour or so I was engulfed in a huge cloud of dust. On the day I made this photograph we went to a high overlook along the top of a mountain range to photograph dawn light. This time I recognized that strange, milky atmosphere, seen along and above the Black Mountains in the distance in the photograph. The morning was, indeed, quite beautiful. But it was only hours later that we began to see dust above us — even though we were thousands of feet up in the mountains — as a giant storm developed, and by the time we returned to the bottom of Death Valley in the mid-afternoon one of the biggest dust storms I have seen enveloped the area.

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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: France, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Windows And Hallway

May 21, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Of course, we visited the Louvre while we were in Paris. We had a day, and that was not nearly enough. A week might be about right. We managed to view one floor of one wing, and then quickly visit a few other areas. We mostly saw older work including some of the major classics for which the museum is known, but later in the day we briefly explored some areas that aren’t perhaps the typical things that American tourists look for there.

This was a day of interesting outdoor light. There were clouds, sometimes thick and sometimes thinning enough to produce directional light. As we passed through this hallway the light was softly directional and even though the architecture here was modern and somewhat plain, the light attracted me and I stopped to photograph this row of windows.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: England, Photographs: People, Photographs: Urban/Street

London Sidewalk

May 20, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

People along an urban sidewalk, London

Sometimes with street photographs I do not quite know exactly what it is that appeals to me even though I know that the appeal is there. Perhaps part of the appeal of street photography, at least with some of the subjects, is that I have to response very quickly and almost entirely on the basis of intuition — often without even enough time to immediately consider the photograph I just made. It is look, photograph, move on, look some more. I may not “see” the photograph as an image again until much later… and even then it may be hard to identify the specific appeal in the image.

I barely recall making this photograph, in fact. I think I was crossing a street and about to come up on the sidewalk, and I’m willing to bet that the dark clad fellow with the headphones on was my primary point of interest. Judging from the low camera angle, I also suspect that I was photographing quickly from the waist, without even taking the time to raise the camera to my eye. (I kind of like this angle — it suggests photographs with classic twin lens reflex cameras.) There are other things about which I could speculate… but I think I’ll just leave it here as a photograph.

Photographs: France, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Cafe, Montmartre

May 19, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening scene at a cafe in Montmartre, Paris

This photograph was made on a warm summer evening last summer in Paris, on the day that we arrived by train from London. I’m almost embarrassed to say that this was our first ever visit to Paris — it is a long story — but I’m also very happy that we did get there, spending a beautiful week in the city. As first-time Paris visitors, we had little idea what we were doing, an issue perhaps compounded by the fact that I generally don’t like to do too much research about a place before arriving. Oh, and we don’t speak French. All of that aside, we made it from the train station to our hotel, and set out on foot in the early evening to try to get our bearings.

We had virtually no idea where we were going. We understood that we were in Montmartre, which we had selected at least in part because our son and daughter-in-law had stayed in the area recently. I won’t recount the entire story of our random wanderings through areas that we began to understand a bit better by the end of our visit, though in another post I may share the tale of our “discovery” of a rather well-known place. In any case, we were hungry, and it didn’t take us too long — though longer that it took on the following evenings — to figure out that finding a place is not a problem in Paris. In fact, we ate at this place…

G Dan Mitchell Photography

All posts by G Dan Mitchell

Before The Dust Storm

Windows And Hallway

London Sidewalk

Cafe, Montmartre

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