Tag Archives: america

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

People Standing By Window

Image Leave a comment
People Standing By Window
Two people stand against a dark wall next to a window, Museum of Modern Art.

People Standing By Window. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two people stand against a dark wall next to a window, Museum of Modern Art.

This photograph comes from a Manhattan visit a few years back. We usually are there for at least a week each year — though we have not been back since before the start of the pandemic. We miss the place! We have some traditions when it comes to these visits. One is to indulge me in a lot of “museum time.” (The amount of time I’m willing to spend in such places occasionally makes me the butt of family jokes.) We visited the Museum of Modern Art on this visit, and the photograph comes from there.

I’m often a bit surprised — though by how you’d think I would not be — by how interesting I find museums as photographic spaces. They are full of interesting and sometimes unusual architecture, and they are often designed to incorporate a lot of investing lighting, especially natural lighting. In many cases there is some sort of central atrium or similar that creates a tall, vertical open area… and that provides some wild and off-kilter angles of subjects that would look quite different if photographed on their own level. Here a pair of people stands at the base of a stairway, positioned in the angle between a nearly-black wall and a window.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

A Seal’s Life, Part III

Image Leave a comment
A Seal's Life, Part III
A solitary elephant seal nappping on a Southern California beach.

A Seal’s Life, Part III. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A solitary elephant seal nappping on a Southern California beach.

Here is one more — and probably the last for now — in the little “Seal’s Life” series. (I resisted the temptation to call it “lounging seals” or “lazy seals” or similar.) The photographs in the set all came from a very brief visit to an easily accessible location along the shoreline below the Big Sur coast. We took that longer route on a drive to Southern California, and we decided to stop as we passed this spot, despite having stopped there many times before and despite the somewhat uninspiring lighting conditions. It is hard to resist visiting these critters!

In the other posts I mentioned the contrast between the appearance of these creatures on land, where they are somewhere in the lazy to lumbering zone, and their purported speed and grace in the water. I’m not a diver, so I’ve never seen the latter — I just get to see (and hear and smell…) them on the beach. On the day we visited, almost all of them were engaging in pretty much the same activity as this one, namely not much activity at all. The head lifted from time to time, a flipper of sand was sent onto the back, a seal rolled over… but the whole scene was mostly one of apparent sloth.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

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

Autumn Brush and Trees, Eastern Sierra

Image 2 Comments
Autumn Brush and Trees, Eastern Sierra
Brush and trees begin to take on autumn colors along the base of the eastern Sierra Nevada.

Autumn Brush and Trees, Eastern Sierra. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Brush and trees begin to take on autumn colors along the base of the eastern Sierra Nevada.

My first memories of Sierra Nevada aspen trees could not be more different than what we see in this photograph. Those early experiences came on backpacking trips when trails briefly traversed small groves. I’m thinking of several of them as I write this — a small section along a trail to Cathedral Lakes, arriving at such groves when descending from the crest on the east side, various other backcountry locations. I always associated them with the “High Sierra,” the high elevation, forested wilderness that lies below the exposed high peaks.

It was much later that my perception evolved and encompassed the recognition that these trees can be part of what is essentially a high desert terrain just as easily. I recall a drive east of US 395 into such an area a few decades ago on which I was surprised to find groves of aspens surrounded by rangeland and no other trees. I soon became aware of what had always been there but which I had not noticed — small groups of such trees all along and near the base of the eastern Sierra. This small grove, along with a bunch of shorter brush, grows in a small creek bed passing through an area that is otherwise profoundly dry and seemingly barren.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Black Point and Negit Island

Image Leave a comment
Black Point and Negit Island
Tufa formations, Black Point, Negit Island, and distant hills in sunset light at Mono Lake.

Black Point and Negit Island. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tufa formations, Black Point, Negit Island, and distant hills in sunset light at Mono Lake.

Yes, this is yet one more — but probably the last — of the photographs of this lovely autumn evening at Mono Lake a few years ago. Most of the others feature the rising full moon, but I made this one a few minutes before that event, while the last of the day’s sun was still streaming over the Sierra crest and striking the tops of the mountains to the east of Mono Basin.

Besides being a photograph of a beautiful time of day at the lake, the scene includes a number of important little elements that might not be immediately obvious. In the foreground we see a few of the ubiquitous tufa formations that dot the border of the lake, quite a few of which were revealed when Los Angeles’ thirst for Sierra Nevada dropped the lake level. This also reveals sections of the curving lake shore that would have been underwater some decades ago. At the far left is the dark bulk of Black Point, and intriguing formation that few get to actually visit. Just of Black Point’s shoulder is Negit Island, one of two volcanic islands in the lake. to its right you can barely see the low north side of larger Paoho island. And those far mountains where a bit of sun still shines are a very long ways away, and it a location that is pretty close to inaccessible.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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