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DUMBO Afternoon

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DUMBO Afternoon
DUMBO Afternoon

DUMBO Afternoon. Brooklyn, New York. August 8, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People along the waterfront, DUMBO, Brooklyn Bridge Park

I think I was vaguely aware at the time when I made this photograph that I was being affected by a painting that I had seen a few days earlier in Chicago. We traveled from California to New York City by train on this visit, and we stopped for a couple of days in Chicago — since we had to switch trains we figured that this gave us an excuse to visit that city a bit. Among other attractions, the Art Institute of Chicago is there, located in Millennium Park, which was just a short walk from where we were staying. There was a lot to see there, but one of the more famous pieces is Georges Seurat’s “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte,” so we had to go see it. I was already familiar with other paintings by Seurat and with this one by means of reproductions, but it is a very different experience to see such a thing in person. I have a habit (perhaps annoying to friends and family members!) of taking a lot of time with original work like this — I can never know when or if I’ll see it again, so I spend enough time going over it, somewhat methodically, that I can begin to see features that aren’t visible with a quicker look and I can also fix many elements of the thing in my mind so that I can recall them later.

As we walked along the Brooklyn waterfront a few days later and paused near the river taxi terminal, I began to look at the people who were busy walking, standing, and making photographs of themselves along the water from a sort of personal Seurat perspective. I waited for a group with an interesting set of clothing colors to arrange themselves in an interesting composition and perhaps create a sense that each of them, individually or in groups, might have a story: a woman stands alone, another looks toward other people, a man squats to make a photograph, a couple in purple and orange converse near the fence, two young women are exercising their dogs, a couple at the right (both of whom wear green) look out of the frame.

  • For those who many not know, “DUMBO” is the name of an area in Brooklyn — it is located Directly Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Western Horizon

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Western Horizon
Western Horizon

Western Horizon. Big Sur Coast, California. July 24, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Thin clouds above afternoon sunlight reflected on the Pacific Ocean

This photograph begins a series from recent photographs of the Big Sur coast along the Pacific Coast Highway in California. After a week of being cooped up at home (which construction work was underway) I was itching to get out into the (more) real world, so I took a day for a long, all-day trip down this coast and back to make photographs. The trip reminded me of a lot of things, but among them was how wonderful it is, on a day of terrible inland heat, to be able to hug this coast where it remained cool and damp!

I’m one of those who is fascinated by the brilliant sunlit ocean surface and the way that it can recede towards an almost invisible horizon when the combination of light and atmospheric haze is just right. The high bluffs along this route can be excellent places to observe this and more.* At times the surface of the ocean takes on the appearance of molten metal and is almost too bright to look at. I always watch for these conditions when I am in this area, and I was not disappointed on this visit. In this scene, a group of passing thin clouds provides a visual counterpoint to the brilliant reflection on the ocean’s surface.

  • The “and more” I’m thinking of refers to an unbelievable California coastal experience that I shared with a number of other visitors at the end of this day. There are few other places in the world where you can pause at the top of cliffs hundreds of feet above the open sea at sunset, and watch for perhaps a half hour as a pod of gray whales assembles to feed, periodically breaching.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Base of the Panamint Range

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Base of the Panamint Range
Base of the Panamint Range

Base of the Panamint Range. Death Valley National Park, California. April 1, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The lower reaches of the Panamint Range drop to the floor of Death Valley

The stillness of this image belies what was actually happening when I made the exposure. It was late afternoon, and the sun was just above the ridge of the Panamint Range as we drove down through Death Valley, past the Mustard Hills and towards Furnace Creek. As often happens in the spring, the winds were rising. I saw the scene and immediately knew I wanted to stop and photograph it, with the backlit hills rising across the far side of the Valley. I grabbed my tripod, camera, and one lens and headed across the side of a nearby hill that looked like it might provide me with a higher vantage point, and immediately recognized that wind was going to be a real problem.

The same wind that had filled the atmosphere with the beautiful haze that was glowing in the backlight was also making it nearly impossible to photograph. There are some winds that are strong enough that almost no tripod can hold a camera still, and this was that sort of situation. I set up, hanging onto the tripod to prevent it from blowing over, and waited for a lull in the wind. The wind momentarily diminished enough for me to make a few exposures as a cloud shadow darkened the foreground salt flats.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Desert Mountains, Rain

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Desert Mountains, Rain
Desert Mountains, Rain

Desert Mountains, Rain. Death Valley National Park, California. April 2, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Afternoon rain falls on peaks beyond a rising series of rugged desert mountain ridges, Death Valley National Park

This turned out to be a surprisingly and almost ridiculously productive day of photography, which was not at all what I expected as the day began nor at any number of times later in the day. Much of what happened was unplanned and the result of discovering things and of reacting intuitively to changing conditions. Prior to getting up before dawn to head to out first shooting location, my description of what I hoped would happen on this day or even of what I expected would happen would have had little in common with how it evolved. I have related some of the details of the earlier parts of the day already—sunrise light cut short by an incoming storm, the surprise discovery of abundant high desert mountain wildflowers, a snow storm, a first visit to an old historic site, and more—so I’ll just briefly mention the later part of the day. The winter storm, that brought some rain and snow to Death Valley National Park mountains, finally broke up, leaving a few showers high up in the mountains along with brilliant light coming through gaps in the thinning clouds, and these conditions lasted right on into the evening.

I made this photograph in the late afternoon. There was still plenty of rain or snow among the peaks, though the air was much clearer below and, indeed, some light was beginning to come through the clouds. Here I had a clear view across a portion of the valley, over the alluvial material at the base of the Cotton Mountains, and on up across the layered ridges toward the cloud-shrouded higher peaks. I had an idea for this as a photograph, but the light was difficulty and I knew that significant work in post would be required. Indeed, while this might seem like a simple natural landscape, the final version here is the result of significant work done after the fact in the digital darkroom.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.