I have visited some remarkable cathedrals in Europe, and I obviously have seen stained glass windows. But I paid less attention to the light shining through them until we visited Sagrada Familia in Barcelona a few years ago. We entered late in the day as light streamed though that church’s remarkable windows, and the effect was simply astonishing. After that I began to notice similar, though subtler, effects in other big churches.
Continue reading Stained Glass Light
I have photographed and walked across Balcony Bridge in Central Park frequently. It is near the edge of “The Lake” in a popular area of the park, and in warm weather it is common to see lots of people pausing on the bridge to enjoy the view and take pictures. But it had a very different feeling on this cold and snowy winter day.
It only snowed for a few hours on the late-December morning, but it was enough to cover the ground with an inch or two of white, transforming the appearance of the park. The snow and the mostly-barren trees presented a starker landscape, one that reminded me of some well-known Bruegel winter paintings.
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” from Heyday Books, is available directly from G Dan Mitchell.
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I photographed this little scene on a cold morning walk through New York’s Central Park this past December. We were fortunate to have light snow one morning, and that changed the appearance of the city and the park. It had already been cold enough to freeze most of The Lake’s surface, but the light snowfall covered imperfections. In this spot fallen leaves rested on new ice and the reflected the silhouettes of nearby trees.
The concepts of “nature” (and even of “wilderness”) are complex and, I think, not entirely fixed. Sometimes we accept the notion that these things mean “devoid of evidence of humans.” But there’s a problem with that idea — it suggests that humans are independent of the natural world. Finding the natural world in places like this — even if you can perhaps hear car horns in the distance — is a reminder that nature is everywhere and we are a part of it.
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” from Heyday Books, is available directly from G Dan Mitchell.
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We visited New York City during the holidays at the end of 2024. We got lucky and had just the right sort of minor snow storm — one that left perhaps an inch or two of snow on the ground, lending atmosphere to he place, but which wasn’t serious enough to snarl traffic. Here in Central Park the meadows were covered with shallow snow.
We went out for a morning walk to meet our oldest son and grab a bite to eat. After that we headed north and ended up passing through the lower portion of the park on the way to our hotel. Here the trees were winter-bare, and their silhouettes contrasted with the hard-edged forms of the buildings beyond.
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” from Heyday Books, is available directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email
Articles | Sales | Sierra Nevada Fall Color | Contact Info
All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.