Tag Archives: architecture

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Garden Wall Arches

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Garden Wall Arches
A texture wall with archest next to a small garden, Balboa Park.

Garden Wall Arches. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A texture wall with archest next to a small garden, Balboa Park.

This photograph comes from a set that I made during a visit to the San Diego area back in 2013. We were in the Los Angeles Basin, and decided to head south for a short visit. We ended up spending time at the city’s Balboa Park, one of the most impressive city park sites I’ve seen.

At times we simply strolled around the grounds, without any particular immediate agenda. This gave me plenty of opportunities to play with photographic ideas that just cropped up — nothing iconic, and often more about shape and texture and color, as in this photograph of a section of arches in a wall above a garden and colored with both warm and cool tones of light.

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.

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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pandemia, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Stage Door

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Stage Door
The edge of a shadow falls across a stage door.

Stage Door. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The edge of a shadow falls across a stage door.

This photograph qualifies as part of the “postcards from pandemic” group, as I made it while on one of the long local walks that I’ve been taking in and around my neighborhood since the lock-downs began six months ago. Yes, it has been that long. The good news is that if all goes according to plan we might be almost half way to a vaccine and the beginning of a return to something like normalcy.

This photograph is also an example of something that afflicts most (though perhaps not quite all) photographers, namely an interest or even obsession with form, color, and various kinds of patterns, even when seen in mundane locations. This is a side door to a school theater — hardly an iconic subject! But as I walked past at just the right moment, the shadow diagonally bisected this very blue door, and the angles of shadows and stairways converged in interesting ways.

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 and Amazon.

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

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Table and Window

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Table and Window
A table in a room at the Lan Su Chinese Garden, Portland, Oregon.

Table and Window. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A table in a room at the Lan Su Chinese Garden, Portland, Oregon.

Considering its location, jammed into an urban block in Portland, this garden is a remarkably quiet and serene place. In fact, my visit convinced me that this feeling is contagious, altering the attitudes and behavior of visitors who come through the gates from that urban environment.

We had a few afternoon hours to enjoy the place some years back on a visit to Portland, a visit on which we went to many of the city’s lovely gardens. This photograph looks into a small room, across a game table, through a window, and out into the garden.

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 and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: San Francisco

Detail, Palace of Fine Arts

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Detail, Palace of Fine Arts
Detail of a small section of the Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco.

Detail, Palace of Fine Arts. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Detail of a small section of the Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco.

Perhaps I was channelling my inner Atget when I made this photograph a few years back. I was wandering around San Francisco with a camera — a favorite activity in non-pandemic times — and I ended up at the Palace of Fine Arts near the waterfront. It is a remarkable place with a remarkable history. Originally constructed as part of the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, it was the only structure that wasn’t taken down afterwards. Originally meant to be a temporary feature of the Exposition, it deteriorated and was eventually completely taken down in the 1960s and reconstructed by the mid-1970s. .

Something in the photograph illustrates how I do (and do not) see when I’m making photographs. One one hand I and other photographers often see things that others might miss. On the other hand, because we are focused on one way of seeing our subject we may entirely miss things that are completely obvious to others. Sometimes we “discover” these elements of our photographs later. (Someone pointed out that a difference between photography and painting is that the photographer cannot know everything in the image.) In this case, it was only years later that I noticed the rather striking symbols that appear on the surface of this building — symbols that no sane person would include today. This led me to some quick research that suggests that in 1915, and before the atrocities of WWII, the symbol in question had an entirely different meaning.

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 and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

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