Photographs: People, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Three People, Gallery, Elevator Door

January 16, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Three people in an art gallery with a freight elevator door

I suppose that if you are camera-shy and you see me in a museum that you may want to run for cover. (Or just wait for me to become interested in the exhibits — I’m notorious for taking forever to work my way though museums. Family members have been known to just give up and go find a restaurant to wait for me to finally finish!) In any case, I like to photograph in museums, for the interesting architectural details and light and for the opportunity to watch people doing interesting things and assembling themselves into various compositions.

We were at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA) where we had seen a lot of very interesting stuff. (My favorite was the installation on the top floor by William Kentridge, “The Refusal of Time. I walked into it prepared to be unimpressed, but ended up being very moved by it.) Along the edge of a gallery on a lower floor there was a giant freight elevator door taking up almost all of one wall. One thing about museums is that almost anything seen in such a place has the potential to take on meanings beyond the ordinary, and for some reason this door caught my attention. I did as I often do with such subjects — I waited for people to populate this “intimate urban landscape” so that I could make a few photographs.

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Wildlife

Elephant Seals, Stream

January 15, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Elephant seals cavort in a fresh water stream flowing across a beach

During the first week of the new year we travelled to Southern California for a family event. These days we are more likely to take the plane or train for such things, but since our oldest son and his wife were visiting from New York and also were headed that direction we decided to drive and take the Pacific Coast Highway — not fast but certainly scenic. That plan also fell through. We didn’t check road conditions before departing and right around Carmel we saw a sign announcing that the route was closed some miles to the south. Normally that would mean turning around, but since one in our group had never seen the area at all we decided to at least go to Big Sur for lunch before turning around and using highway 101 instead. After lunch I happened to check my phone, and I discovered that the route had been cleared literally minutes earlier — and the Big Sur Coast drive was back on!

Below the most rugged section of the route (roughly south of Ragged Point) the terrain flattens out and becomes much more gentle. In this area there is a well-known elephant seal rookery, where these huge animals haul out and give birth each year. The elephant seal population was once endangered, but protections have brought them back and they are now becoming much more common along California’s coast. These animals had split off from the larger group to enter the fresh water of a coastal stream where it crossed the beach to join the ocean, with the water backlit by the late afternoon sun.

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Urban/Street

Apartments, Driveway, Dusk

January 14, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Security lights illuminate the driveway of an urban apartment complex, Pasadena

Landscape photographers are well away of the qualities of light during the short period leading up to sunset, and with the rapidity of the changes to that light. But something similar happens for photographers of the “urban landscape,” as well, though it tends to be most pronounced immediately after sunset rather than just before. There is a short period of perhaps a half hour or less when the ambient natural light is somewhat in balance with artificial light. During this period the natural light has diminished to the point that things appear more like night than day, but there is still enough natural light around to fill shadows and illuminate areas that are not covered by artificial light. (A bit later and the artificial lighting is virtually the only light source in most cases, and the range between light and shadow can be quite large.)

It was close to the beginning of such a time when I made this photograph of a parking lot and group of apartment buildings while walking around in Pasadena during the first week of the new year. A bit earlier and the lights either would not have been on or would not have been visible. A bit later and the foreground shadows would be completely black. It is a bit difficult to say precisely what attracted me to this scene — perhaps the bit of light spilling around the corner of the wall at left, perhaps the lovely yellowing light on the garage doors, maybe the geometry of the buildings… or perhaps the sum of all these things and more.

Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Two Sandhill Cranes in Dawn Flight

January 13, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A pair of lesser sandhill cranes flies toward the rising sun

The first birds that attracted my attention when I began to seriously photograph them in California’s Central Valley were not sandhill cranes, but rather geese. A series of coincidences led me to (finally!) “discover” the great winter bird migration, something I should have known about much earlier, having lived in this state for nearly my entire life. I recall one winter drive up the Valley perhaps 15 years ago when I first saw and was amazed by flocks of geese in dusk light above the Sacramento Valley.

Once I started photographing these birds I soon discovered that there’s a lot more going on than those astonishing huge flocks of geese — many other birds, all of them with different behavior patterns and attractions. It did not take long to discover sandhill cranes, birds that I had read about but not understood all the way back in college. While they can be ungainly on the ground, their pattern of flight is often magnificent and their cries now characterize the audio winter landscape of the Valley for me. This pair had just arisen from its overnight home along a wetland pond and was flying past and toward the dawn sun.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Three People, Gallery, Elevator Door

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Elephant Seals, Stream

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Apartments, Driveway, Dusk

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Two Sandhill Cranes in Dawn Flight

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

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