Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

From Shore to Shore

Image October 6, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Both shorelines of a rock-bound alpine lake

The Sierra Nevada is sometimes called the Range of Light, in recognition of (or so I think) the open quality of its forests, the tendency toward summer sunshine, and the resulting abundant light. It is a very different place than, say, the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. There are day-to-day exceptions to the rule, but overall the characterization holds. As a matter of fact, on our mid-to-late September backcountry visit this year we experienced an unbroken string of perfect blue sky days for over a week. (By the way, photographers don’t necessarily regard that as a good thing!)

However, it is quite possible to experience different sorts of light in these mountains. Obviously, anyone who has experienced a major winter storm in the Sierra has seen the other end of this spectrum. Thunderstorms do sweep through in the summer months. And in some places where the mountains are close, tall, and very steep there can be lengthy “blue hour light” at the start and end of the day. I made this photograph in such a place, where the sun didn’t arrive until many hours after sunrise, and the shadows returned hours before sunset. In this light, the rocky terrain around this lake took on an appearance that doesn’t fit with that “range of light” description.

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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: France, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Travel

Courtyard at the Louvre, Evening

Image October 5, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

In the evening a shadowy figure walks across the courtyard in front of the Louvre.

Close to the end of our time in Paris this past summer we had a magical evening. As I recall, we had no particular plan at this point, but it was a warm late afternoon so we decided to walk. We headed towards the Seine and crossed at Pont Neuf right at sunset. There were thousands of people everywhere — walking, looking at the view, sitting along the river bank, dancing along the walkways, making music, riding bicycles, you name it.

Eventually, shortly after the actual time of sunset, we walked across a bridge and entered the courtyard of the Louvre. Still there were people everywhere, though things seemed to be slowing down — more of them were standing or sitting, watching the sky. I wandered into this courtyard at twilight, just after the lights on the building had come on, and I paused to make a few handheld photographs of the scene. In this one, a blurry figure seems to be exiting the scene to the right.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Grasses, Water, Talus

Image October 4, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Talus from a glacial moraine reaches the edge of a reflective alpine lake with a shoreline patch of grass

This is (yet another) photograph from my September backcountry sojourn in the John Muir Wilderness, accompanied by a group of four friends and photographers who try to do this every year. We packed in to a lake a few miles from the trailhead, set up camp, and proceeded to work the surrounding landscape for the next week, starting early and finishing late almost every day. In the course of the week we thoroughly explored the surroundings within a few miles radius of our camp.

The far edge of the lake near our camp was completely rocky and almost entirely devoid of flora. (Our side did features a meadow and some stunted trees.) A tremendous talus field, distorted by glacial action, rose straight up from the lake shore to the surrounding ridges. I photographed this material several times during our stay, most often working in the early morning before the direct sunlight arrived. In many of the photographs there is nothing by rocks and water, but in this one I included a bit of the colorful shoreline grass.

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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: France, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Travel

Stairs, Le Centre Pompidou

Image October 3, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Outside stairs at Le Centre Pompidou, Paris

We had previously walked past the Pompidou Center museum but had not stopped, instead visiting other museums on our list. The structure is famous (or infamous, depending on your aesthetics) for its unusual architecture, which exposes lots of things that would usually be hidden beneath the skin of a more traditional building — ventilation ducts, stairs, escalators, structural reinforcements, and more. While the art inside the building was fascinating, the photographer in me was attracted to the structure itself.

I made this photograph from the ground level before we went inside. The simple “x” shape is superimposed on some of those exposed structural details, in this case a bunch of outside stairways. The color scheme of the building in this area is almost purely monochromatic — at first I thought I was looking at a black and white image, until I noticed a bit of yellow color along a margin. Since it was already monochromatic I decided to eliminate even that bit of color and go with a black and white rendition.

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G Dan Mitchell Photography

From Shore to Shore

Courtyard at the Louvre, Evening

Grasses, Water, Talus

Stairs, Le Centre Pompidou

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