Michigan Avenue, Evening

Michigan Avenue, Evening
“Michigan Avenue, Evening” — A wet autumn evening along Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, photographed from the Chicago Institute of Art.

Needless to say (though I am saying it anyway!), for Californians, Chicago around Thanksgiving seems like a very cold place. (I can imagine Chicagoans shaking their heads and muttering, “Come back in January, California boy!”) To be truthful, we had very nice weather for late November: overcast, but daytime temperatures into the 40s and only a little bit of light rain. Yet, this photograph just looks cold to me!

We had been out for a walk and as we passed the entrance to the Art Institute of Chicago, I decided to use that building (on the left) to frame the early evening sky against the skeletal trees, and set against the other buildings along Michigan Avenue.


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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


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2025 Favorite Photos

Here is a collection of some of my favorite photographs from 2025. Assembling annual collections gives me a opportunity to get a better overview of my work over the longer term. The project also jogs my memory and gives me a chance to relive memorable experiences from the past year.

Here is a set of thumbnails of the selected photographs. You can pick the image for a better view of the set, but continue reading to see larger versions of the photographs read more about each image.

2025 Favorite Photographs
A set of G Dan Mitchell’s favorite photographs from 2025.

I prefer the term “favorites” over “best” since I’m not really able to know which are best — that’s a subjective thing, its not entirely my decision, and it changes over time. But right now, I can say for sure that these are among my favorites.

Choosing the set is challenging! Near the end of the process I must eliminate photographs that are also favorites in order to keep the collection to a reasonable size. (Perhaps I’ll share some of the “(Almost) Favorite Photographs” in a separate post!)

I choose the final set from among all of the photographs that I shared on this website during 2025. The majority were also photographed during 2025, but a few are photographs “captured” earlier that I finished working on this year.

The final set includes diverse photographs since I photograph a wide range of subjects. Some of you who follow my landscape photography may not know that I also do travel and street photography, that I sometimes include people in my landscape work, or that I do some macro photography. So I select a set of favorites that includes examples from various genres. They also come from throughout the year and from many different places — the mountains, the desert, wildlife refuges, American and foreign travel, my local neighborhood.

Continue reading to see larger versions of the photographs and to read more about them. (Click photo titles below to see their original posts. Click on the photographs to view them larger.)

Continue reading 2025 Favorite Photos

Utah Aspen Grove

Utah Aspen Grove
“Utah Aspen Grove” — An extensive forest of tall Utah aspen trees with autumn foliage.

This is another of those photographs from a distinctly non-iconic location. Once again, while driving a main route I spotted a little gravel road heading off in the general direction of a shallow valley filled with aspens. Being of a mind to explore, turned off and followed it into large groves of tall, colorful autumn aspen trees.

This scene illustrates something I have mentioned before: the California aspens in the Sierra Nevada are much different from what you see in the Southwest and any other places. I’m used to smaller groves and smaller trees, often growing so densely that it is hard to walk among them. But these trees grow tall and remarkably straight, and are spaced widely enough to allow plenty of light on the forest floor.


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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Manley Lake, First Light

“Manly Lake, First Light” — Early morning light on the Panamint Range reflected in Manly Lake, Death Valley.

Death Valley National Park is so large that it is often hard to fathom the its scale. Lake Manly, the temporary body of water occupying a section of the Valley near Badwater, is small by comparison to the valley as a whole. The mountains in this photograph are many tens of miles away. (A couple of roads reach that ridge, and it would take 1 1/2 or 2 hours of driving to reach their high points from the shore of Lake Manly.)

In the daytime most of this desert landscape is not particularly colorful. In fact, in flat light and haze it can sometimes seem almost monochromatic. But early in the morning and then again in the evening, the sunrise and sunset light paint the scenes with vivid colors that contrast with the hazy blues of the shadows.


Leave a comment or question using the form. (Click the title to see the full article and to comment if you are viewing it on the home page.)

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

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