Category Archives: Photographs: England

Photographs: England, Photographs: Urban/Street

Balthazar, London

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Balthazar, London
Street scene, bakery, bar, and red car

Balthazar, London. London, England. August 5, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Street scene, bakery, bar, and red car

Here is another photograph in what I sometimes refer to at the “this-will-perplex-fans-of-my-landscape-photography” category. :-) The scene is a busy London street, photographed during a visit last August as we walked though this area. (If memory serves, we may have been on our way to a concert.)

In general, I’m not a fan of photographs that require too much explanation. That being said, I acknowledge that some photographs do require this… so here is a bit of explanation. You could look at this simply as a visual record of a place in the city. In fact, there is a bit of that here, since part of what got my attention was the red “Balthazar” awning above the bakery across the street, and my wonder at the use of the same name for a popular bakery in Manhattan. You can also try looking at the photograph simply as an image constructed of a limited range of colors (one in particular!) and forms, some of which may reveal surprises if you look closely. Anyway, that’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to 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” 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: England, Photographs: People, Photographs: Urban/Street

Colchester Billiards & Snooker Club

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Colchester Billiards & Snooker Club
A few people stand outside the Colchester Billiards and Snooker Club along a narrow curving street

Colchester Billiards & Snooker Club. Colchester, England. August 4, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A few people stand outside the Colchester Billiards and Snooker Club along a narrow curving street

During our lengthy travels (five weeks on the road!) this past summer we spent a bit more than a week in London. While most of our plans were in London, we decided to get out into the country at least once on this trip. So, more or less on a whim, we decided to take the train to the town of Colchester after reading a brief entry about it on some website or similar. (In some ways we are fans of injecting a bit of randomness into our trip planning — we often discover interesting things that way.)

Colchester is a smallish town at more or less the end of a spur railroad line. It obviously attracts a certain number of tourists, perhaps day trippers from London, since it has a number of shops and places to eat and so forth. It also has a few historic structures including a castle (of course!) and a very old church. On the other hand, it also features some mundane things — we saw a lot of hearing aid shops! Up this narrow, curving street I spotted an interesting spot of color in the green building, along with a few people populating the tables in front of the local Billiards and Snooker Club.

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

London Street Scene

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London Street Scene
People on a crowded London street

London Street Scene. London, England. August 5, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People on a crowded London street

This will likely be one of those photographs that perplexes people who follow me for my nature, landscape, and wildlife photography. On the surface it seems like the virtual opposite of those photographs, but there are similarities. This is a kind of landscape — the urban landscape — and it is possible to see it in ways not that different from how we might see the natural landscape, with attention to patterns, to light, to distance and perspective, and more. And the people here are, in a sense, the “wildlife” of this urban world.

It is a little bit tricky to articulate just what I saw or see in a photograph like this. Of course, it does “record” a particular scene from a certain busy area of London. But it is also a sort of accidental tableau in which figures arrived in positions and relationships that somehow caught my attention. And, perhaps obviously, color is part of what happens in this photograph. Beyond that, I’ll leave the viewer to speculate.

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.

Photographs: England, Photographs: Urban/Street

Rain, Fallen Leaves, Reflections

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Rain, Fallen Leaves, Reflections
A pedestrian walks post a small garden in the rain near the Tate Modern, London

Rain, Fallen Leaves, Reflections. London, England. August 2, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A pedestrian walks post a small garden in the rain near the Tate Modern, London

It may be a bit hard to see in this small version of the photograph, but the walkway, made dark and reflective by light rain, is covered by a universe of small leaves that have fallen from the row of trees that stretches to the right and out of the frame. I was also attracted by the complementary red and green colors of reflections and leaves.

The location is not far from the end of London’s Millennium Bridge and at the entrance to the Tate Modern, where we went to see a wonderful exhibit of Georgia O’Keeffe paintings. (And, yes, it did seem slightly strange to be visiting the exhibit of this American painter in a British museum.)

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.