Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Walkway, Lan Su Chinese Garden

July 9, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A covered walkway at the Portland Chinese Garden.

After our recent stay in Portland, Oregon, I understand that there is more to the city than beer. Though don’t overlook the beer… ;-) Portland seems to be a city of gardens, at least in the central portion where we spent most of our visit. This may be redundant, but there are beautiful gardens of all types and in a variety of places. We visited nearly a half-dozen, even though that wasn’t the primary goal of our trip. (And, no, it wasn’t the beer, either. But that did figure in our plans, too.)

On this day we were walking around portions of the downtown area, mostly south of the main downtown center. In the afternoon we decided to head north and east a bit and walk into Portland’s Chinatown area. It is a much different place than the more compressed and more touristy Chinatown of San Francisco. Our main goal was the Lan Su Chinese Garden. This garden is a beautiful little marvel, located in an area where you might not expect to find such a thing. Although it occupies a very small downtown block, there is much to see inside, especially if you walk slowly and look carefully. At one point I imagined what it might be like to be in such a place alone, so I made a point of trying to make a few photographs that didn’t include other visitors, such as this black and white photograph of a covered walkway winding along an edge of the garden.

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Equipment, Reviews

In Praise of the Canon 24-105mm f/4 L IS

July 8, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 11 Comments

(Note: Though Canon no longer sells this lens, it is still around and may be a useful lens for photographers using DSLRs.)

Sometimes it seems like the Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS lens doesn’t get the respect it deserves. It probably doesn’t help that it is often described as a “kit lens” because Canon bundles it with some of their full frame DSLRs. Having a maximum aperture of only f/4, it lacks the f/2.8 aperture found on some other Canon L zooms. It uses an “extending” zoom design that moves the front element when the focal length changes, and some mistakenly associate this with lower quality lenses. It certainly doesn’t have the panache of the high-end, large-aperture primes, with their big f/1.4 or f/1.2 maximum apertures, nor of the big and impressive f/2.8 L zooms, nor the exotic and equally expensive tilt/shift lenses——nor does it have their correspondingly large selling price.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Forest, Tarn, and Granite

July 8, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Sierra forest and granite reflected in the surface of a small tarn, Yosemite National Park.

Having visited the Sierra and the Yosemite high country for more than a few decades, I have become attached to a number of small and unlikely little places that have personal meaning to me. This is one of those odd little spots. At a point along Tioga Pass Road there is a small unmarked turnout like many other such turnouts along this route. One time a few years ago I stopped here for reasons that I can no longer recall. I got out of the car and noticed a very faint path leading away from the road – so, of course, I took it! It led though tightly spaced trees and towards a small canyon, passing several small ponds along the way. I also recall mosquitos. Lots of mosquitos.

Since that time I have returned to this spot quite a few times – in snow on the day that the road first opens, on sunny summer days like this one, and on damp and foggy evenings in late fall not long before the highway closes for the season. Where is the spot, exactly? All I’ll say is that it is in Yosemite and that you can get to it by walking away from Tioga Pass Road. Frankly, I don’t think the specific location really matters to anyone but me and perhaps a few others who might stop here, too. There are thousands of such little spots throughout the Sierra, and it is your discovery of your own personal places among them that can make them special.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Trees and Granite Slabs, Sunset

July 7, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sunset light on granite slabs and lodgepole forest, Yosemite National Park, California.

I made this photograph almost a year ago, during a Sierra Nevada summer that was much wetter and greener than the current season. I had driven to the Yosemite high country and found a campsite, then set about looking for photographic subjects. Often on my first day in the high country, I do only a little photography. Instead I spend the first part of the day driving, the middle part finding and setting up a camp, then eating, and only after that wandering off to look for things to photograph in the evening. On these first days, the evening photography is somewhat spontaneous, depending upon the light conditions and where I ended up camping.

On this day I first took a late afternoon hike into an area that is visited a bit less frequently, going there to photograph some granite and water. However, I neglected to bring mosquito repellant, so this hike turned into a mad scramble to make it back to the car before the bugs managed to suck out all of my blood! After that I simply visited a series of familiar locations along Tioga Pass Road, more or less heading back in the direction of Tuolumne Meadows and stopping here and there to make photographs as the subjects and the light caught my attention. At the time of the very last light I found myself near this very accessible and very familiar granite formation, so I quickly grabbed my gear and walked up slabs to make this photograph as the last momentary bit of direct sunlight struck this dense grove of pines.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Walkway, Lan Su Chinese Garden

In Praise of the Canon 24-105mm f/4 L IS

Forest, Tarn, and Granite

Trees and Granite Slabs, Sunset

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