A Photo Per Day Since When?

March 24, 2018 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

See July 3, 2005 post)

I was helping out at a friend’s workshop earlier today, and he mentioned to the group that I have been posting a new photograph every day for a long time. He turned to me and asked, “How long?”

I’m actually not quite certain. The first photograph posted at this blog was on July 3, 2005, when I shared a black and white photograph of the Golden Gate Bridge. Look back through those early posts I can see that at first there were gaps between posts, sometimes of a day or two, and perhaps a bit longer on a few occasions. But shortly after that I decided to try to produce work (not always “great” work) at a rate such that I could post a new photograph every day — so it seems like it must be getting close to eight years now.

I’m occasionally asked a few other questions about this project:

Why?: The main idea comes, I think, from my background in music, a field in which it is simply accepted that you must make work (e.g. – “practice”) continuously, both to develop your skills and to make them become instinctive.

Do you think you can produce a great photograph every day? No! Making a handful of excellent photographs (at least in the genres I focus on) every year is a worthy goal. Essentially, I’m exposing my “practice” work to the world, partly to encourage myself to take the work seriously and partly to share the process with others.

Do you actually go out and make a new photograph every day? Again, no. I produce work at an overall rate that lets me post something every day, but there are many days when I make no photographs… and other days when I make quite a few.

Questions or comments? You can leave them here on this post.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Utah, Photographs: Yosemite

Old Tree, Snow Flurries

March 24, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Snow flurries begin around an old tree, Yosemite Valley

In the latter part of February I was very fortunate to be able to spend a full week in Yosemite National Park, mostly photographing in the Valley. (Thank you to Yosemite Renaissance for sponsoring my stay.) It was a cold week with a fair amount of snowy days — no heavy snow, but with the cold it fell all the way down to the elevation of the Valley and even lower nearby.

Late on this afternoon I had finished up some earlier projects and I was casting about for a final subject before the light faded. Since I was in this area I went to where I knew I could find this magnificent old tree, along with some other smaller trees growing along the Merced River. On this very cold afternoon the scene was quite gray, with clouds above and light snow beginning to fall, muting the details of the background forest and almost completely hiding the granite walls of the Valley.

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

Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Blue Metal Structure

March 23, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Detail of a blue metal building at the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.

I was at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard to spend the evening doing night photography with my friends from the original Nocturnes group, and I had arrived well before sunset. After meeting up in the Mare Island Museum for pizza and conversation we realized that the end of the day was coming. I went outside about a half hour before sunset, and I thought of some old industrial buildings that I had passed on the way in. Instead of staying where I was and starting my typical routine of wandering on foot with my gear I decided to take short drive back to those buildings and see if I could make a few quick photographs in the end-of-day light.

I soon arrived and made a few photographs in golden hour light, but the sun quickly dropped below the horizon and I was left with that post-sunset glow. This light can be quite warm if clouds reflect some of the remaining red, yellow, and orange tones of sunset, but if the sky is clear what remains is the intense blue of early twilight. The latter light is what evolved, and I soon moved back to this unusual structure whose blue paint’s color was even more intensified by this twilight illumination.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Cliff in Sun, Trees In Shadow

March 22, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The edge of a granite face caught in morning sun, with snow-covered trees in shadow

The little bit of sunlit granite cliff on the right side of this photograph has long intrigued me. When the light hits it a highlight is added to a scene that is often otherwise almost completely in shadow. The light only happens for a short period, since the sun has to rise above the thousands-of-feet-high cliff above and then find its way down at just the right angle. Basically, it is only going to happen in the morning at this time of year, and for a short time at that. On this day I photographed it just after new snow had fallen the night before, coating trees and granite with a thin layer of snow.

The color of this scene is perhaps also worth mentioning. I decided to “go with the blue” on this image. Deeply shaded areas that are illuminated by open sky are often far bluer than we might think, something that photographers soon learn to recognize. When we look at such a scene with our eyes and our brains visual processing system, our brain tells us that, for example, the snow in this scene is white. But objectively speaking it is very much NOT white — it is the blue of the sky. In many cases photographers — including me — will adjust the color of the blue shadows in post to make them a bit closer to how we recall the scene, but another option is to leave it just as blue as it actually is… which is what I’ve done here.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

A Photo Per Day Since When?

Old Tree, Snow Flurries

Blue Metal Structure

Cliff in Sun, Trees In Shadow

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