Category Archives: Photographs: People

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: People, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Bicycle Rider, Brick Wall

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Bicycle Rider, Brick Wall - A bicycle rider in orange rides past a brick wall, Seattle, Washington
A bicycle rider in orange rides past a brick wall, Seattle, Washington

Bicycle Rider, Brick Wall. Seattle, Washington. May 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A bicycle rider in orange rides past a brick wall, Seattle, Washington.

This is going to be the first in a small series of photographs from Seattle, Washington that focus on what might be described as urban geometry – odd or interesting juxtapositions of shapes and colors and so forth. I made this photograph back in early May when I joined a group of Seattle photographers for a “Seattle Photo Walk” in the Fremont District. I had only an hour to shoot, but I managed to work intensely for that hour and come back with some stuff that is interesting to me in one way or another.

One thing that I enjoy about photographing the urban environment is that potential subjects come and go almost constantly and often last only for a brief instant. I have to react so fast that I certainly cannot see everything in the frame in a conscious way while making the photograph, though there is something to be said for perhaps have an intuitive understanding of what is there. When I made this photograph I was walking along a bridge the heads back into Seattle’s Fremont district. I had been looking at these brick buildings which feign being old – they are actually new but with old-looking brick walls. The geometry of the buildings attracted me, but I hadn’t really seen a photograph in them at this point. Then, as I looked, I saw the cyclist coming along wearing this very bright orange shirt and helmet and wearing an orange pack. I quickly framed up a composition that included the building, the walkway, and a portion of the road and then waited for the rider to enter the frame. As he passed through I quickly squeezed off three frames. In two of them, a car obscures the cyclist, but in the final one, taken just before he exited the frame, he is all alone against the patterns of the road and the building. (I didn’t notice until later the windows reflected in the middle row of windows on the building.)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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.

Events, Photographers, Photographs: People, Photographs: Photographers, Photographs: San Francisco

Arthur Tress, De Young Museum

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Arthur Tress, De Young Museum - Photographer Arthur Tress speaks about his photography on March 9, 2012 at his exhibit at the De Young Museum, San Francisco.
Photographer Arthur Tress speaks about his photography on March 9, 2012 at his exhibit at the De Young Museum, San Francisco.

Arthur Tress, De Young Museum. San Francisco, California. March 9, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Photographer Arthur Tress speaks about his photography on March 9, 2012 at his exhibit at the De Young Museum, San Francisco.

Last week I was fortunate to be among a small group of San Francisco Bay Area photographers invited by Adobe to attend an event at San Francisco’s De Young Museum in connection with the opening of “San Francisco 1964,” an exhibit of the photography of Arthur Tress. The exhibit includes a large selection of work which, as I understand it, Tress shot as a young man upon his arrival in San Francisco in 1964, the year when both the Republican Convention and the Beatles arrived in The City.

While Tress’s photographs are certainly interesting historically in that they capture many elements, both small and large, that characterize the visual nature of that time, they are also just plain wonderful photographs. Many capture odd and ironic juxtapositions of elements, others focus on the people watching the main events (civil rights demonstrations, etc) taking place in front of them – and some are simply touching recordings of individual people. (One of my favorites, among many, is a haunting but seemingly simple photograph of a young woman sitting at a table.)

If you are a Bay Area photographer or photography aficionado – or even a fan of the history of the Bay Area – I encourage you to visit the De Young to see this show. And, again, thanks to Adobe for giving me the opportunity to see the photographs and, even more, to hear Tress speak about his work. (This photograph of Tress is presented in black and white and in a square format – once you see his show you will understand why… ;-)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: People, Photographs: Yosemite

Tenaya Lake, January 2012

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Tenaya Lake, January 2012 - Skaters and walkers on frozen Tenaya Lake, accessible via the still-open Tioga Pass Road on January 16, 2012.
Skaters and walkers on frozen Tenaya Lake, accessible via the still-open Tioga Pass Road on January 16, 2012.

Tenaya Lake, January 2012. Yosemite National Park, California. January 16, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Skaters and walkers on frozen Tenaya Lake, accessible via the still-open Tioga Pass Road on January 16, 2012.

I have been meaning to post this photograph since I made it last month, on January 16, 2012. The serious California drought (or so it seems) of 2012 created very unusual conditions in the Sierra this winter. The Tioga Pass Road (highway 120) through Yosemite National Park usually closes by some time in November, and has been known to close as early as October. The early season this year made it appear that we might have a normal or even heavier than normal winter – early storms near the beginning of October brought a lot of snow to the range and temporarily closed the road more than once. But by December it became clear that this was not going to be a normal year at all, and by the end of the month there was almost no snow anywhere in the range.

A week before this visit I had crossed and re-crossed the pass on a trip to Death Valley. While I appreciated the convenience and shorter drive, I found the odd conditions unnerving. Aside from a few patches here and there, I saw no snow at all, though the seasonal cold had frozen the high country lakes. A week later it looked like a storm or two might finally arrive, so we decided to make the trip up to the Tuolumne area to see the high country in a state that we probably (hopefully!) won’t see again. During the week before this visit, local news stations around California had made this story well known, and they almost all mentioned that people were visiting Tenaya Lake. And, indeed, there were tons of people at the lake when we arrived. There were about as many cars as you might see on an August afternoon. People were clustered along the frozen edge of the lake, were walking along its borders, even setting up tables for picnics on the ice. A few people thought to bring ice skates and they were skating great distances. (Fortunately for us, most people went no farther than Tenaya, and the crowds decreased rapidly after that point.)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: People, Photographs: Southern California

Photographer, Sand Dunes, Evening

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Photographer, Transverse Dunes, Evening - A lone photographer at work among sand dunes, Death Valley National Park, California.
A lone photographer at work among sand dunes, Death Valley National Park, California.

Photographer, Sand Dunes, Evening. Death Valley National Park, California. January 3, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A lone photographer at work among sand dunes, Death Valley National Park, California.

This is a sort of “Where’s Waldo?” photograph – and, yes, there really is a photographer in this scene. There is not much to give you an accurate sense of the scale of the components of this scene, and there are even a few details that might throw you off. Hint: That bush near the upper left is a lot larger than you might imagine. If you look closely, I’m pretty certain that you can spot the photographer, but I won’t spoil the fun by telling you where to look.

These dunes extend over a large areas in Death Valley National Park, and I’ve come to find some of the smaller dunes of the park to present interesting relief among the closely spaced ripples and waves of sand, and late-day color variations that only get better after sunset. To make this photograph I used a long lens and found a vantage point that was elevated above the sand.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.