Patricia Emerson Mitchell and I are presenting a Silicon Valley Open Studios event this weekend. Here’s a video preview of our open studio.
We have many of our prints set up for viewing and purchase, with some excellent discounts available. We’ll also have a few related items, including signed copies of my fall color book and Patty’s cards.
We’ll be open on Saturday, May 21 and Sunday, May 22 from 11:00 AM until 5:00PM. Details are available at the Silicon Valley Open Studios website, or by contacting us, including by posting a comment here. We’re looking forward to seeing you!
UPDATE: Thank you to all who visited on Saturday. It was good to see old friends and make new ones, and several prints found brand new homes! Today is the second of this two-day event, and we’ll be open again from 11:00AM until 5:00PM.
Special Note: Patty and I are presenting a Silicon Valley Open Studios event today. Look us up (Dan | Patty) or contact us for information. Visit us and see our prints!
The desert landscape has many moods. When we are honest, I think most photographers will confess to a preference for focusing on aspects of this landscape that show only a part of this truth. (There’s nothing wrong with that, but viewers should be aware that photographs of the desert are not equivalent to the place itself.) We lean toward times and scenes where the colors are more attractive, we seek out subjects full of lines and interesting curves, we can be like to include the rarer spectacular skies rather than the common pure blue sky, and we can’t resist familiar and iconic subjects.
This isn’t one of those photographs, or at least I don’t think it is. At most times this succession of rising hills might barely attract your attention as you passed it on the way to something else. But I have photographed that “something else” plenty of times, so when I saw the late afternoon light slanting across the tops of the edges and fold, the bits of brighter vegetation, and the haze-obscured background I felt free to stop and look for a photograph.
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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Special Note: Patty and I are presenting a Silicon Valley Open Studios event on May 21 and 22. Look us up (Dan | Patty) or contact us for information. Visit us and see our prints!
The process leading me to this photograph was a bit oblique. This is another image from our spring visits to a garden full of seasonal flowers. I had been photographing tulips when I was distracted by wisteria plants that were almost completely covered with dense flowers. I went to photograph the flowers, but up close they didn’t see quite as fascinating as the bush seen as a whole. But as I worked on photographing the flowers the leaves kept getting in my way… until I realized that perhaps they might make the photograph.
Moving from focusing on the flowers to incorporating the leaves, I first simply included a few leaves in a flower photograph to provide a bit of contrast. As I worked I continued to given the leaves a larger and larger portion of the images. Soon I was primarily focused on the leaves, including the flowers only as background. I placed the flowers behind the leaves and narrowed the focus zone to emphasize the leaves. Eventually, as in this photograph, I removed any obvious presence of the flowers at all.
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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Special Note: Patty and I are presenting a Silicon Valley Open Studios event on May 21 and 22. Look us up (Dan | Patty) or contact us for information. Visit us and see our prints!
This is (yet another!) photograph of a subject that was not my primary target when I went out to make pictures. That seems to be a theme recently. To recap, when I go to photograph some particular subject, I keep my eyes open for other subjects that may be lurking nearby. There’s almost always something else interesting in the vicinity waiting to be discovered.
We were photographing spring flowers at an extensive public garden surrounding a historic mansion. We entered, following our usual path along a walkway that skirts the perimeter of a large semi-enclosed area. Stairs led me into this place, and as I poked around I became interested in the weathering of the old concrete wall — now covered by moss in places and filled with cracks. Among other things, I was intrigued by the dissonance between the nearly random form of the crack and the linear interruption of the horizontal edge.
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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
