Photographs: Netherlands, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Amsterdam Bike Lane

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Amsterdam Bike Lane
Cyclists on a bike lane on a cloudy day in Amsterdam

Amsterdam Bike Lane. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Cyclists on a bike lane on a cloudy day in Amsterdam

This photograph is partly about bicycles and Amsterdam, partly about that interesting and dark sky, partly about Amsterdam architecture and buildings that lean, and partly about that guy in the foreground. This summer was our first visit to Amsterdam. We stayed just outside of the central city and walked a few blocks to get to the well-known areas each day. For many years I was a very active cyclist in the US, but this is an entirely different scene. Almost no lycra, dropped handlebars road bikes, few mountain bikes… and lots of people in street clothes riding very utilitarian bikes… and parking them everywhere. Somehow the intersecting types of traffic — foot, transit, canal, bicycle, car — seem to coexist here, though it can be quite confusing at times for a first-time visitor.

This day’s light was remarkable. There was thin sunlight, but there were also some lovely dark clouds in the sky. If memory serves, we were in light rain later that evening as we ate dinner outside. We ended up talking to a couple who live in Amsterdam about many things. I confessed that I had initially been mildly disappointed to find the cloudy weather when we arrived, expecting it to be sunny. They more or less laughed and pointed out that this was the more typical sort of conditions. (They claimed that I would not see blue sky. That turned out to be wrong… but only by a little bit!)

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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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Subalpine Lake Shore And Forest

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Subalpine Lake Shore And Forest
Subalpine forest ascends on granite benches above a small lake

Subalpine Lake Shore And Forest. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Subalpine forest ascends on granite benches above a small lake

This scene is located in one of the lovely intimate landscape areas of the valley we visited in mid-September this year. While spectacular alpine ridges and peaks and long vistas seem like primary features of the Sierra Nevada, the more time you spend there the more you’ll come to think of scenes like this one as defining the nature of the place. It is a land of bare granite slabs and benches, on which small trees managed to find sustenance, broken up by lakes and tarns and meadows. While those monumental peaks are often visible above, these scenes are more characteristic and perhaps affecting.

The light is special, too. In this terrain of open forests, widely spaced trees, rocky formations, lakes and meadows the light manages to find its way into nearly every corner of the landscape. Unlike denser forests, where the ground can seem to be in perpetual shade, here the light almost always breaks through. Even in areas where the light is blocked by peaks, other peaks often reflect soft light to illuminate the shadows. And everywhere, especially early and late in the day, back-light can make the trees and grasses glow.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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 and Amazon.
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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Austria, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Travel

Interior, Austrian Postal Savings Bank

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Interior, Austrian Postal Savings Bank
Main interior space of the historic, modernist architecture Austrian Postal Savings Bank

Interior, Austrian Postal Savings Bank. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Main interior space of the historic, modernist architecture Austrian Postal Savings Bank

Today I’m breaking up the stream of Eastern Sierra autumn color photographs and returning to the even larger stream of photographs from our travels this past summer. This time we’re back in Vienna, where we spent four nights back in August. It was our first visit and, as seems to be the case with first visits to such places, the experience was a combination of being fascinated/impressed by the city along with beginning to get a sense of its character. Four days is, of course, too little time to really understand a place, but during four days our relationship to such a place changes quite a bit.

We got a recommendation from someone to locate and visit the Austrian Postal Savings Bank (Österreichische Postsparkasse), and we’re glad we went. The place does not seem at all to be on the lists of “things you must see in Vienna,” but if you are interested in architecture and history it probably should be. I won’t try to recount my limited understanding of the history here (there are great resources online, and you can start with Wikipedia) but the modernist building is remarkable, both in its overall effect and in its details. This photograph shows the main room, now mostly vacant, which is a remarkable modern, bright, and airy space, lit from about via a huge skylight.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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 and Amazon.
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Commentary, News, Stories, Thinking Aloud

What I’m Working On Today

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What I'm Working On — 10/22/2018
What I’m Working On Today — 10/22/2018

What I’m Working On Today. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

For fun, today I’m also sharing a little shot of part of my computer screen. It shows several of the threads I’m working on right now. I’m getting close, most likely, to the end of this year’s Eastern Sierra autumn color photographs. (Though western Sierra photography is up and coming right about now.) I’m plunging back into the huge collection of photographs I made as we traveled this past summer — on the screen there are currently photographs from Amsterdam, Paris, Vienna, and Heidelberg, with a few other locations yet to come.

But I’m not just working on new photographs — some older work is also on my mind this week. I am a member of a San Francisco night photography collective known as Studio Nocturne. We have a small show right now at Farley’s Coffee in San Francisco, each of us has a piece in the SOMArts exhibit, and our San Francisco ArtSpan 2018 Open Studio is next week at ARCH Supplies in San Francisco. This means printing and mounting and labeling various pieces, including the dark photograph of a Central California donut shop at the top of this window.

And there’s more! I’m also working on a number of prints for Stellar Gallery in the Yosemite Area — some for a new exhibit that is just going up there and some to be sent to collectors who have made recent purchases. No, those aren’t on the screen at the moment… but they will be very soon!

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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 and Amazon.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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