Category Archives: Photographs: Structures and Objects

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Ghost Towns, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Abandoned Mill

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Abandoned Mill
The ruins of an abandoned mill in the desert backcountry

Abandoned Mill. Desert Mountains, California. April 4, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The ruins of an abandoned mill in the California desert backcountry

During the nearly twenty years since I first “discovered” California deserts, my experience with them has changed. To be honest, as a person largely focused on the coast and the Sierra, when I was younger I didn’t really know much about these wild places, and I wasn’t really attracted to them. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that I actually made a serious visit and began to “get it” about the things that make these areas so marvelous. At first, like almost anyone else, I focused on some of the most obvious and iconic places. But eventually as I returned to these places, especially to Death Valley National Park, I began to push out my boundaries bit by bit. As I did so I discovered many more interesting things about these places, both the natural wilderness and the human history. One of the first experiences that connected me to the human history was an accident. One evening I wandered away from a camp and just sat down on a boulder in an elevated location on an alluvial fan. I happened to look down to see an unusual rock. I picked it up and quickly realized that it was a cutting implement left their by the earliest people to make their lives here — and my notions of the depth and variety of human experience in the desert was profoundly altered.

That human influence has many facets. Certainly the experience of the people we now refer to as “native Americans” is central. (I like Canada’s term: “first people.”) Later settlers showed up for a range of reasons — pioneers passing through, prospectors chasing the dream of the big strike, folks looking for a job, people not well suited to living in the civilized world, and other. They all left traces. The prospectors and miners left lots of them all over the desert landscape, and you can’t travel around these places without running into it. The photograph is a detail from one amazing structure high on a desert ridge, abandoned only recently in the context of the larger scale of history, but still putting us in touch with an era that is mostly gone now from these places.

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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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Urban Geometry

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Urban Geometry
A study in shapes, colors, and textures, Manhattan

Urban Geometry. New York City. July 2, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A study in shapes, colors, and textures, Manhattan

When I photograph urban/street subjects I am usually looking for quite a range of different things: individual people doing interesting things, masses of people, odd little vignettes, color and line, and sometimes the urban landscape itself. It is, I think, possible to regard the city as a kind of landscape, and even to photograph it in ways that are similar but perhaps not identical to how we photograph the so-called natural landscape.

On this day I was on foot (hiking?) through Manhattan, on my way to meet people, when we passed through the area around Washington Square. The stark and angular architecture of this bit of a building caught my attention, and some of the colors and textures brought to mind a sort of idealized representation of the red rock canyons of the Southwest.

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Inside The Oculus

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Inside The Oculus
Play of midday light and shadows on the walls of the Oculus, SFMOMA

Inside The Oculus. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. July 13, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Play of midday light and shadows on the walls of the Oculus, SFMOMA

This week we made a visit to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) to see and hear the Soundtracks exhibit, which presents objects and installations of sonic art of various sorts. To be honest, I wasn’t that hopeful about this exhibit — I’ve often found that many visual artist’s ideas about sound art can be naive and banal in too many cases. However, the exhibit was (is, and you should go) excellent, with a wide variety of work that is interesting in a range of ways.

In any case, virtually every visit to this museum is also an excuse to make at least a few photographs, often of the architecture of the place. The central “Oculus” structure (which housed one of the sonic art pieces, too) is interesting to me as much for the play of light and shadows on its curved walls as it is for its own architectural form. I have photographed it many times, but being so close to the summer solstice the shadows took on different qualities than I had seen before. Here shadows from the structure of the upper window fall across a curved wall that is perforated by a pattern of large holes.

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Walking Woman, Wall

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Walking Woman, Wall
A woman walks past a Manhattan wall

Walking Woman, Wall. New York City. July 2, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A woman walks past a Manhattan wall

We returned last night from a week in Manhattan, mostly visiting family but also wandering… and eating… and photographing. I know for a fact that I’m not the only so-called nature or landscape photographer who also loves photographing the urban landscape, and when there is hardly a more varied or compelling location than New York City — from Central Park to the skyscraper canyons to the variety of neighborhoods. I’m often happy to just go out walking with my camera, with only the vaguest notions of what I’ll photograph, and to be open to surprise.

We were walking uptown from our hotel, which was on Grand, almost in the middle of the Little Italy area, and we decided to pass through the Washington Square area. We were almost there when we approach portions of the NYU campus and I saw this cubist scene, with colors, shapes, and textures that immediately reminded me of the sandstone canyons of the Southwest. (Yes, my mind works that way, even in the Big City.) I made a few quick initial exposures and then paused to see who would walk into the frame on this sunny morning.

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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