Category Archives: Photographs: Europe

Photographs: Europe, Photographs: France, Photographs: Nature

Fall Color, Birch Tree

Image September 14, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A birch tree provides early autumn color in the Fontainebleau Forest, France

My first “fall” color photograph of 2018 comes from… France! We recently returned from a forty-day trip, mostly in Europe, and we were in France for most of the final two weeks. We started with a short return visit to Paris, but then we met other family members in the area near Barbizon and Fontainebleau. We were there for a full week, which gave us plenty of time to explore the area. One of the interesting features is a natural one, the forest of Fontainebleau. This is not like conifer forests of the American West where I spend so much of my time — the terrain is nearly flat (with only small hills) and the trees are mostly conifers. Fontainebleau also features some remarkable boulders, and I should be able to share some photographs of those later on.

In was, in fact, those boulders that brought us to the location where I made this photograph. We made a short hike into the forest and climbed one of those small hills to find it covered with the boulders. As others began to leave I stuck around a bit longer and found this birch tree that was just beginning to get fall color.

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Photographs: Europe, Photographs: France, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Evening Stroll, Montmartre

June 3, 2018 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

People walking in the evening along narrow streets of Montmartre, Paris

This is another photograph from our 2016 European trip, on which we spent about a week in Paris. It was, I’m almost embarrassed to admit, our very first visit to the city. (It is a long story. But at least we did finally go. And we’ll go back again!) We loved everything about our stay there. When we travel to such places we spend a lot of time walking — to and from locations we want to visit, wandering around once we get there, and exploring neighborhoods near our accommodations or which happen to catch our attention.

I made this photograph “in the neighborhood” near our hotel in Montmartre. My recollection is that we had headed out looking for a place to eat dinner — something of a daily adventure — and were walking around during the sunset and evening hours. This is a great time for street photography, since the lights of businesses have come on, yet the ambient light from fading daylight is still bright enough to illuminate the scene.

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

Photographs: Europe, Photographs: France, Photographs: Travel

Paris, From Sacre Couer

June 17, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Overlooking Paris from Sacre Couer on a cloudy evening

I never get tired of telling a story on us, a story about our first evening in Paris. Last summer, in 2016, we traveled for about five weeks, visiting a number of places from New York to London, Paris, Heidelberg, and finally ending up in Italy. We had been to some of these places before, but this was our first visit to Paris and Italy. On the first afternoon in Paris we managed to only slightly confuse ourselves finding our hotel, but we soon resolved that and got settled in for a weeklong stay.

In the early evening we decided to head out. First we wanted to find espresso — and just to tell you how naive we were, we looked long and hard to find an espresso place. (Yes, anyone who has visited Paris is laughing at that. We learned. Quickly.) Then we set out on more or less a random walk around the hotel in the Montmartre district. Eventually we came to a hill, and there was a tram. Now this looked interesting. We decided to walk up the hill and at the top we “discovered” a rather impressive church, from which there was an expansive view of much of Paris. What a wonderful discovery. Oh, wait, this is a pretty famous place, Sacre Couer. :-)

Photographs: Europe, Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Hotel, Narrow Street

February 10, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Out for an afternoon walk on our last full day in Florence, Italy on this visit, we kept walking as night arrived. We only had a few days here at the end of a long trip, so we were trying to make the most of a short stay. Our hotel was in the old section of the Florence, so we could walk out the front door onto one of the very narrow old streets and head off in any direction and find interesting things.

At this point, nearly a half-year later, I can’t remember precisely where I made this photograph, though it may have been roughly in the neighborhood between our hotel and Duomo. There were a lot of people out walking on this warm evening, and many of my other photographs of this street included pedestrians and cyclists, but I think I ended up liking this deserted view with the street winding past the backwards “hotel” sign and then curving out of view.

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Europe

Fall Color, Birch Tree

Evening Stroll, Montmartre

Paris, From Sacre Couer

Hotel, Narrow Street

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