Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Shoreline, Early Morning

Image November 4, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Fractured rocks and late-season grasses along the shoreline of a subalpine Sierra Nevada lake.

Does this scene look cold? It was! I had headed out around the circumference of the lovely subalpine lake next to which we had been camped for several days, with a goal of reaching the outlet stream at the far end of the lake. On the scale of Sierra Nevada backcountry lakes, this one is perhaps a bit larger than the typical size, but not extraordinarily large. However, the hike around the lake took longer than expected — party due to my tendency to stop a lot to look and photograph, and partly due to its complex shoreline. It is lined with small bays that necessitate either an inland loop or an ascent across the intervening land.

This photograph was made near the bottom of one of those bays. Because the tall peaks to the east — seen here at the upper left — blocked the morning sun until several hours after actual sunrise the area was still in shade… and cold and a bit windy. For this photograph I did something that is a bit unusual for me. I put my ultra-wide-angle lens on the camera, got very close to my foreground subject, and took advantage of this setup’s ability to include the near and the far in the frame.

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Photographs: France, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Walking Woman, Intersection

Image November 3, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A woman walks past the intersection of two narrow streets in Le Marais, Paris

This photograph has many of the features that I often look for in street photography. There is a figure, and the figure is in motion, quickly transiting the scene and providing only a very brief interval to make a photograph. In this case there is only one figure, and by some miracle other people aren’t “cluttering” the composition. The buildings are tall and the streets are narrow, so all of the light is reflected down from above, bouncing back and forth between the buildings to produce a soft effect. (The closest thing to this may be the canyon light of America’s Southwest.) There are interesting little architectural touches that may not be obvious until you spend a bit of time with the image — the lamp at upper left, a bit of graffiti on a wall, etc.

I made the photograph in the Le Marais section of Paris, where older buildings and their narrow streets are preserved — they were not knocked down during earlier modernization projects in the city. It is also an area that is (largely) devoid of big commercial signs like those found on bigger and busier streets. There are signs, but they are often quiet and unobtrusive.

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

Photographs: France, Photographs: People, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Woman and Clock

Image November 2, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A woman gazes toward the Paris skyline through the portal of a Musee D’Orsay clock

I can tell something of a story on us regarding the Musee d’Orsay. On a previous visit to Paris we were trying to get to various specific locations including a few museums. However, we can be a bit “seat of the pants” when it comes to wandering around in such cities — rather than making specific plans we tend to decide things on the spot and/or wander around and see what we find. We knew we wanted to visit this museum, but it wasn’t until later on that visit that we made it there. We paid our admission, went inside, and discovered that we had perhaps 90 minutes left before it closed. Needless to say, we moved very quickly through sections of the place and missed a ton of stuff.

This time we wanted to go back and spend a more reasonable amount of time there. And we did. We got there in time to see a good portion of the marvelous exhibits. At one point we were getting hungry, and we ran into a restaurant on one of the upper floors and decided to stop. Overlooking the restaurant was a clock like what you see here. I was very confused. I knew I had seen “the” clock briefly on the previous visit, but I didn’t recall a restaurant… so I chalked up to, “they must have remodeled things and installed this restaurant by the clock. ” We finished eating, went back to visiting the exhibits, and eventually worked our way to the far end of the floor… where we found the other clock, the one that I had seen before. Usually there are a ton of people standing in front of the thing — and who can blame them — but for a moment I was able to frame this photograph with a solitary woman standing and looking through the clock’s windows towards the skyline of Paris.

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Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Multi-colored Aspen Trees

Image November 1, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Multi-colored autumn aspen trees along the Eastern Sierra Nevada

We are now well past the fall color in the Eastern Sierra Nevada — and in many other locations for that matter — but I’m still working my way through this year’s photographs of the annual transition. One of the ironies of sharing photographs like this is that I don’t have new photographs when people are most attentive to things like fall color… shortly before the event occurs. As it is in progress I’m in the field making new photographs. And it isn’t until after our attention has moved on to other things that I’m able to share the work.

I made this photograph on an overcast late afternoon in the margin between high desert sagebrush country and the start of alpine country. Many beautiful aspens inhabit this zone, though not everywhere. In the right conditions the open terrain allows for clearer views of the trees than you might find among the conifer forests, and sometimes these trees can grow straight and quite tall. It is hard to say what “peak color” means, as at the point that one set of trees has maximum color, other nearby groves may range from green to nearly bare trunks. This might be peak color from that perspective, as all of those phases of the color transition are visible here. The soft, overcast light produces a less stark appearance since the gentle light fills in the shadows and doesn’t overwhelm the color highlights.

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G Dan Mitchell Photography

Shoreline, Early Morning

Walking Woman, Intersection

Woman and Clock

Multi-colored Aspen Trees

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