Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Architectural Detail

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Architectural Detail
Architectural details, New York Botanical Gardens

Architectural Detail. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Architectural details, New York Botanical Gardens

We began our recent trip with a short visit to New York City. This gave us a chance to visit with relatives there and to break up the jet-lag-inducing flight to Europe. Because the visit was short — we were only in New York for three nights before we flew on to London — we took it easy and didn’t try to see too much this time. We hung out near our Manhattan hotel, walked a lot, went out to eat, and made one longer trip to the The Bronx to visit the New York Botanical Garden.

The Garden is spectacular, very large, and full of interesting things to see. Unfortunately, we were there on a typical August New York Day… which many of you may know means 90+ degrees and near-100% humidity. Our first stop was indoors, to see a small exhibit devoted to O’Keeffe paintings from her visit to Hawaii. In the building shown in this photograph there was a companion presentation that featured some of same plants and flowers that were the subjects of her work on the Islands. Needless to say, inside this greenhouse-like structure on a hot humid New York day… it was even hotter and more humid! We stuck it out for a while, but we eventually had to go back outside. As we did so, we got a bit of light-softening overcast, and I made a few photographs of the forms and textures of this remarkable building

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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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Fall Color, Birch Tree

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Fall Color, Birch Tree
A birch tree provides early autumn color in the Fontainebleau Forest, France

Fall Color, Birch Tree. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A birch tree provides early autumn color in the Fontainebleau Forest, France

My first “fall” color photograph of 2018 comes from… France! We recently returned from a forty-day trip, mostly in Europe, and we were in France for most of the final two weeks. We started with a short return visit to Paris, but then we met other family members in the area near Barbizon and Fontainebleau. We were there for a full week, which gave us plenty of time to explore the area. One of the interesting features is a natural one, the forest of Fontainebleau. This is not like conifer forests of the American West where I spend so much of my time — the terrain is nearly flat (with only small hills) and the trees are mostly conifers. Fontainebleau also features some remarkable boulders, and I should be able to share some photographs of those later on.

In was, in fact, those boulders that brought us to the location where I made this photograph. We made a short hike into the forest and climbed one of those small hills to find it covered with the boulders. As others began to leave I stuck around a bit longer and found this birch tree that was just beginning to get fall color.

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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: Germany, Photographs: Urban/Street

Time To Dance

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Street art in Berlin, Germany

Time To Dance. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Street art in Berlin, Germany

I made this photograph in Berlin, not too far from the “East Side Gallery,” which is a still-standing remnant of the Berlin Wall that was turned over to artists and which is now covered by paintings. The scene in this photograph is not part of the “gallery,” but was instead a graffiti covered wall we passed on the way to the wall. I don’t make a habit of photographing graffiti, often because I don’t want to contribute the notoriety of some folks who vandalize public and private property. But here the stuff is everywhere and seems to have become a part of the environment, so I’m making an exception.

Besides the wild colors and patterns of this street art, there was another reason for photographing it. While I don’t know “her” cultural significance, the figure in the center of the scene keeps showing up in photographs of mine. I encountered and photographed her twice on a visit to Paris two years ago. In one photograph she appears on a wall, partially obscured by ivy. In another, one of my favorite photographs, she is one of several related figures pasted onto a Le Marais wall behind a small group of pedestrians. Oddly, some of the surrounding “stuff” on this wall seems very similar to that in the Paris photographs, making me think that he appearance may not be quite random.

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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: Germany, Photographs: People, Photographs: Urban/Street

Red Wall

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Red Wall
A person walks in front of a painted section of the Berlin Wall

Red Wall. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A person walks in front of a painted section of the Berlin Wall

Before I say much about this photograph, a bit of background. Near the start of August 2018 we departed from California’s West Coast on a trip that would last forty days. We started with a brief visit to New York City, followed by another brief visit to London — both great places to visit and to adapt more slowly to the time zone changes. From there we made a rough loop that took us to Amsterdam, Berlin, Nuremberg (briefly!), Bayreuth (site of the famous Wagner festival), Heidelberg (for rest and recuperation… and laundry!), Vienna, Paris, and then a week outside of Paris near Barbizon with family. Whew! It was a great trip, with a few familiar places and some that were new to us. Along the way we had lots of opportunities to make photographs, and I’ll be starting to share some of them over the next few weeks and months.

We had three full days (four nights) in Berlin, a city that neither of us had visited before. We don’t travel with tour groups, so we were mostly on our own to explore, and most of our exploring was done on foot. On our last full day we headed east from where we were staying, eventually making our way to the “East Side Gallery.” This is a large section of the Berlin Wall that was not knocked down, but instead turned into a vast canvas for artists. My approach to photographing such a thing isn’t precisely to photograph the art itself, but instead to try to place it in its surroundings and/or photograph people interacting with it — which is the case with this man dressed in red who walked in front of this red section of the former “red” wall.

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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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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.