Altstadt-Heidelberg

May 8, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Karl Theodor Bridge, the old gate, the Heiliggeistekirche, and portions of Altstadt-Heidelberg, Germany

It has now been close to two years since our visit to England, Germany, and parts of Austria back in 2013 — too long, I think! Our visit began with a week in London, where various members of the extended family met up, and then adjourned to Germany, where we have relatives. We stayed with them in Heidelberg for a few days, then took a train to Salzburg and ended up at a big country home at the base of the Alps near Königssee and Berchtesgaden, Bavaria for a week. This was an incredibly picturesque location, with the peak of the Watzmann towering above us as we sat at picnic table behind the farm-house where we stayed. Then it was back to Heidelberg for a few more days before heading back to the US.

In Heidelberg we stayed in a home not far from the old town area along the Neckar River. We were a short walk away, over a hill and along the footpath called the Philosophenweg (or “philosopher’s way”), then down to the riverfront and across the old bridge to the town. The old town of Heidelberg appears like something out of a fantasy of Europe, with narrow streets, many church steeples (including the Heiliggeistkirche seen in this photograph) and the Heidelberg castle on a hill above the town. At the lower left of this photograph you can see the bridge leading across the Neckar River to the old gate to the town.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Turkey Vultures

May 7, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Turkey vultures on coastal rocks, Point Lobos State Reserve

Let me begin by pointing out that I did not go to this place to shoot turkey vultures. In fact, of all the things that I might have expected to see and photograph here, such critters were at the bottom of the list if they were even on it at all. Point Lobos is one of my local “go to” places when I have a half day or a day to photograph. I’ve been going there for literally decades, and I know many parts of this beautiful little park very well. (On the other hand, I hardly ever fail to discover something new when I visit, even after all of these years.) So I had gone there hoping to photograph things like morning fog, the conduction of rocks and surf, the coastal trees, and so forth.

I pulled into a parking lot along the main road and got out without my camera so that I could just look around a bit. As I scanned my surroundings I was surprised to see some large birds on rocks above the surf, birds that I did not immediately recognize. I soon was even more surprised when I realized that I was looking at a group of five turkey vultures — a bird that I’m more accustomed to seeing airborne, coasting on updrafts along inland coastal hills, and often seen alone. I didn’t have any good photographs of these birds, so I grabbed camera, long lens, and tripod and rectified that commission! In flight, these can be rather impressive birds — they are large and they coast quietly overhead. Yet their heads are a gaudy red color, and generally very wrinkled — this almost seems out of character with the rest of the bird. This group stood still for a few moments before, one by one, they gradually took to the air and departed.

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

Dust Storm, Dunes

May 7, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An afternoon desert dust storm obscures sand dunes

Where there are dunes, there will be sand storms and dust storms. The dunes are largely the result of geography that interrupts prevailing winds and causes them to drop their load. When unusually high winds blow through these areas and through dry playas, they inevitably pick up the loose sand and dust and it becomes airborne once again. The immediate effects on a visitor to such places at these times are several. There is dust and sand everywhere — you simply cannot escape it. The night before the wind and sand came through my camp. Fortunately I use a very strong mountaineering when I visit Death Valley since I’ve seen these winds and what they can do. So I used every stake I had, attached stabilizing lines to the tie-out points on the fly, and zipped everything up tightly. I heard the wind and the sand, but my tent was snug and secure. Others were not so lucky (or so prepared?) and all night I heard people outside in the campground trying to tie down flapping tents, recover blowing gear, pound in more tent stakes… or giving up and crawling into their cars. As tight as my tent is, in the morning there was a thin coat of dust everywhere inside.

The next day I headed up into the mountains where I figured it might be less windy. I spent a lot of the time in a deep canyon, and I did escape the wind. In fact, I was pretty much cut off from the outside world — and, therefore, a bit surprised to emerge from the bottom of the canyon into Death Valley to find that the dust was still blowing like crazy. The air was so thick that mountains on the far side of the valley were almost completely obscured, and as I drove south down the valley there were strong cross-winds and blowing sand. I stopped at this slightly elevated spot off to the side of some dunes, put on a long lens (in the relatively dust-free confines of my vehicle) and photographed the dunes, aiming the camera straight into the blowing dust. Yes, this is what a sand storm looks like. (And, yes, I’ve seen worse. Much worse.)

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

Hikers in the Badlands

May 6, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A group of hikers is dwarfed by arid badlands terrain near Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park

In the midst of all the recent Death Valley photographs, with this photograph I reached back into the archives to pull up an older image that had not previously made it out of the collection of raw files. Various things impel me to dig back into the older photographs to see what I’ve missed, and in this case it was a random visit to my website that I noted in my server log — someone had linked in to a photograph of some photographers in Death Valley from this 2007 trip. When I saw that I thought to go back and look at that particular photograph and update it just a bit, and then I got side-tracked and wandered off into that raw file collection.

I recall this photograph rather clearly. For some reason I had stopped at Zabriskie point on a morning that I probably expected to produce an exceptional sunrise — at least that’s my guess based on the kind of clouds in the photograph. If I recall correctly, the morning did produce some interesting soft light, but not the stunner that I thought might happen. (I rarely stop at Zabriskie, but I make an exception if the conditions look like they might produce something unexpected — but you never know until you actually go there before dawn and see what happens.) I remember looking down toward Gower Gulch and the trail to Golden Canyon and spotting this string of five hikers. It isn’t that unusual to see people on this trail, but they stuck close together as the wound along its twisting route, and I thought that this might produce some interesting photographs and reveal the scale of this landscape.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Altstadt-Heidelberg

Turkey Vultures

Dust Storm, Dunes

Hikers in the Badlands

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.