Category Archives: Photographs: England

Photographs: England, Photographs: Nature

Aspen Color, Eastern California

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Aspen Color, Eastern California
Aspen Color, Eastern California

Aspen Color, Eastern California. Near Glass Mountain, California. October 13, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Peak autumn color in a small stand of aspens high in a desert mountain range east of the Sierra Nevada

It is no secret that I love aspen trees, especially in the fall, and that I’m a big fan of the aspens along the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada. I photograph them every year, and I have come to know quite a bit about where to find them and how to photograph them in a variety of conditions ranging from sun to clouds and rain to snow. The aspens in this photo are also in California… but just not in the Sierra.

For a while I’ve had the idea to photograph aspens that are east of the range, since I have seen them from time to time while out there, but usually at the “wrong” time of year. This year I had a chance to make such trees the target of some travel, and we went looking for them east of the Sierra between roughly Long Valley and Bridgeport or thereabouts. The specific location of these trees is not all that important, though I’ll say that we came across this stand in some mountains east of the Sierra – as we rounded a bend and dropped into a valley in mostly sagebrush and juniper country, the stunning color of this grove along a small stream bed provided a vivid contrast with the surrounding terrain. We stopped and wandered around the edges of the grove, mostly making photographs of the trees themselves rather than their larger setting. Sierra fall aspen photographers are (sometimes painfully) aware of the ways that aspen leaves can deteriorate in the autumn, including brown or black spotted leaves or trees that go straight to drab dead leaves without passing through a colorful stage. However, the leaves on these trees were among the most perfect I have seen, with barely a blemish and with intense colors covering the spectrum from barely green though golden and on towards orange and red.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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: England, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Textures, Photographs: Urban/Street

Brick Wall, London

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Brick Wall, London
Brick Wall, London

Brick Wall, London. London, England. August 6, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A painted and weathered brick wall beneath a London overpass

I have only a general recollection of where I made this photograph. I think it was on the south side of the Thames, probably somewhere beyond the Millennium Bridge and in an area of older narrow streets where we walked both to kill some time before an appointment and to wander and see what we could see.

There is, obviously, nothing all that exotic about this wall. In fact, I’ve likely photographed similar subjects in the SF Bay Area. I think several things caused me to stop and shoot it. First, to be honest, I was in a shooting mode – in other words I was shooting quickly and shooting a lot of frames. But beyond that, I was intrigued by the lights, muted by the narrow street and the fact – again, if I recall correctly – that this was shot near the edge of an underpass of some sort. Bricks often intrigue me, but here the layers of paint applied to the bricks, which really shouldn’t be painted, probably covers something that we are not supposed to see. The larger underlying area of black paint contrasts with the Halloween orange that must have been added later. But now new stuff has already been added to the wall on top of the old cover-up job.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: England, Photographs: Urban/Street

Blue Paint and Handrail, Tower Bridge

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Blue Paint and Handrail, Tower Bridge
Blue Paint and Handrail, Tower Bridge

Blue Paint and Handrail, Tower Bridge. London, England. July 3, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Shiny blue and black paint on a wall and a handrail on the Tower Bridge, London

I made this photograph in quite the jet-lagged state – though I had recovered a bit from my initial bout that left me unable to do anything but sleep for an hour or two right after we arrived at our hotel in Kensington. I had a laugh-worthy plan to minimize jet lag – and like most such plans it failed miserably. I figured I would just move my wake up time an hour earlier every day as the trip to approached, and I was actually getting up very early in the morning right before we left. (I can report that it is very quiet and peaceful at 2:00 a.m… ;-) What I failed to consider was that I was also reducing the length of every day by one full hour for the better part of a week before travel… and almost entirely by losing sleep. Obviously, I had a big sleep deficit going by the time we left. On top of that, I was basically completely unable to sleep on the flight over – which is odd, since I can usually sleep on planes.

We arrived in London, took the underground to Kensington, got a bit lost, finally found our hotel, checked in… and I was so jet-lagged that I was incapable of doing anything at all useful. I slept for an hour or two and managed to achieve a state of modest consciousness. If nothing else, I was so tired at this point that I had little problem sleeping that night. So we got on the underground and took the train to the station by the Tower Bridge and walked across it. I was so out of it that I didn’t realize until a few days later than I had completely switched north and south directions! Somewhere I probably have some photographs of the whole bridge, but being the sort of photographer I am, I spent a bit of my time pointing that camera at odd things like this pattern of shiny blue paint, stone, and a black railing.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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.

Photographs: England

London Sunset

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London Sunset
London Sunset

London Sunset. London, England. July 6, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sunset over London, England

We had walked across to the south side of the Thames River earlier on this afternoon – I think it was the day that we visited the Tate Museum, which is located near the south end of the Millennium Bridge. We had been in this area earlier on the trip when we saw “A Midsummer Nights Dream” at the Old Globe Theater, and I had wanted to come back in the evening and try to time it so that I could be along the river during the golden hour and perhaps into the early evening. Sure enough, when we were ready to start out walk back across the bridge to where we would catch the Underground back to our hotel the light was just starting to get interesting. In this case, “interesting” included not only the normal golden hour light show but also the somewhat thick and humid atmosphere found here.

My main thoughts were to photograph the skyline to the north and south of the bridge, and to continue shooting as the evening lights began to come on. But when I saw this sun in the hazy sky I put on a long lens that did what I would do in the Sierra Nevada back home – I made a sunset photograph! However, the landscape in this image is distinctly British and distinctly London, with the most obvious feature being the BT Tower at the left.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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.