Clouds of steam rise into the winter morning sky above Manhattan
It must have been a slow week in Manhattan. When we arrived at our Canal Street hotel on Christmas Eve day, they upgraded us to a better room and put us something like 20 floors up, in a room with huge windows with a view to the east over lower Manhattan. A week later, on the final morning of our visit, we were enjoying this view one last time before checking out and starting the process of heading back to the west coast. (First a few hours in Brooklyn, then a trip to JFK, then a long flight…) It was a cold early morning, not too long after sunrise, and there was a high shield of thin cloud to the east. The sun was coming in under these clouds at a low angle and back-lighting the rising columns of steam all over the city, so we made a few final Manhattan photographs through the window before heading out.
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
This is one of the photographs from my three-year project photographing professional classical musicians. As part of the project, which is now in its second year, I have been “embedded” with the Symphony Silicon Valley (the descendent of the former San Jose Symphony). Most of my photography has been during rehearsals, when I can work fairly freely backstage, photographing musicians in ways that they are not usually seen. Most people have a limited familiarity with classical musicians, mostly seeing them from a distance in performances when they are formally attired. One of the goals of the project is to show aspects of their lives and work that are not seen as often – the rehearsals, what goes on backstage, even what they do between rehearsals and concerts.
There is a lot of photograph in this world! I’m fortunate not only to have the cooperation of this wonderful group of musicians (thanks SSV people!) but to be personally very familiar with this world. My training is in the field of music. At one time I played professionally, and at another point I worked as an orchestra stage manager. So I have developed some sensitivity to music and musicians that might be difficult for other photographers to achieve. Many interesting things happen so quickly that you might not even see them if you did not know to look. The work of the conductor is but one example. From instant to instant the conductor’s facial expression changes, sometimes radically, to both respond to and anticipate changes in the music. The position and motion of the hands and, for that matter, the whole body, conveys important but fleeting cues to musicians. I studied conducting a bit at one time, but I think I have learned more about it in the past two years by closely watching and becoming aware of the visual elements of the conductor’s work. Layered on top of that is the basic photographic need to be constantly aware of light, both in the technical and expressive sense, and how to place the subject in a context that “works” visually. This is a very different sort of work that photographing landscapes, but it is equally challenging and rewarding!
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
The 6D is Canon’s excellent full frame DSLR which produces photographic quality essentially equivalent to that of the more expensive 5DIII. The 24-105mmm f/4L IS lens (which I own) is a fine and versatile lens for a wide range of types of photography. The combination is the core of a fine system for many photographers. If you have been considering moving the the full-frame 6D, this sounds like a great deal.
By the way, a few years back I wrote that it would not be all that long before high quality full frame DSLRs would be available in the price range of what were then the high end crop sensor bodies – like today’s 7D. Well, considering what the list price is of this lens alone, we are now there and more!
Canon 6D DSLR with Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS
(Purchasing via the affiliate link in this post—and by using similar links elsewhere on this blog—helps support the website… and won’t change your purchase price at all. Thanks!)
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
Trees, fog, and snow on the granite summit of El Capitan glow in a final beam of sunset light.
Near the beginning of March I was in Yosemite Valley for three days in conjunction with the opening of the Yosemite Renaissance XXIX exhibit. (One of my photographs is in the show.) It was a wonderful weekend in many ways. Lots of artists of all sorts were there for the opening—and for Yosemite!—and I had the chance to get together with many friends among them. It was also a time of atmospheric conditions that were spectacular in ways that interest me as a photographer – broken light, occasional rain, mist and clouds.
On this evening we went to Tunnel View since it was mostly gray down in the Valley and because there was some promise of not only drifting clouds and mist there, but also of some late day light. All of those things happened, but as the end of the day approached, the “lights went out” as the clouds to the west thickened and blocked the setting sun. I continued to shoot for a while, mostly focusing a long lens on small distant details within the scene, but I finally decided that the light was simply becoming too flat and I walked back to the car to pack up, thinking about the friends I would soon join for dinner in the Valley. At the back of the car I removed the long lens, collapsed the tripod, and was packing everything away when Patty, who was sitting the front seat and facing the valley, exclaimed, “Look at that light!” Frankly, I wasn’t expecting much, but when I looked up I saw a blood red band of light stretching across the cliffs of El Capitan on the left and Sentinel Rocks on the right. Apparently the sun had found a narrow gap in the clouds almost exactly at the point it reached the horizon far to the west. I immediately knew that this light would be gone very quickly—at best it might last a minute or two—so I worked very quickly to set up the tripod, attach the camera, and stick a long lens on it… not even looking up at the view as I worked. No time to look! I quickly moved the camera to the nearest possible shooting location and, working almost entirely intuitively, quickly picked out perhaps four different shots, each focusing on the momentarily best bit of light as the scene evolved quickly. The final bit of light was a rapidly fading stripe just across the snow- and cloud-shrouded summit of El Capitan, where the upper rocks, snow, and trees picked up the intense red light for a matter of a few seconds, and then it was gone.
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
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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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.
