Tag Archives: art

Photographs: Austria, Photographs: Travel

Art

Image Leave a comment
Art
A wall covered with art postcards in a museum gift shop, Vienna

Art. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A wall covered with art postcards in a museum gift shop, Vienna

This summer marked our first visit to Vienna, a place that we thought we knew a lot about — largely from our background in music — but which surprised us in many ways. We arrived by train, and on the taxi ride to our hotel I was stunned by the monumental architecture of many of the buildings and the layout of the city. During our stay we got to know parts of the city much better, mostly by walking from place to place.

And, of course, we visited museums. I made this photograph in one of them, as we passed through a gift shop. Something about this “rack of great art,” reduced to postcard size and juxtaposing a wild array of work, caught my attention. I think you can enjoy it simply as a wildly colorful thing, or as a place to look for unintentional connections and relationships. You could also test yourself by seeing how much work you can identify. You could also muse about the way that great work is transformed into postcards and what it all means!

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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 <!– | Twitter –>| Facebook | Email

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

Photographs: Netherlands, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Unfun

Image Leave a comment
Unfun
Weathered wall with graffiti, Amsterdam

Unfun. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Weathered wall with graffiti, Amsterdam

For the most part I don’t photograph graffiti, and on the rare occasions when I do in the US I may alter the painted “tags” in post in order to avoid giving publicity to folks who, it may be argued, are basically vandalizing the property of others. I’m also sometimes a bit uneasy, when the marks transcend mere graffiti and become street art, about simply capturing an image of someone else’s art and presenting it as my own.

But sometimes I can’t help myself. In fact, on our 2018 European travels we encountered so much graffiti that it would almost be dishonest to pretend that it isn’t part of the urban landscape. (Especially in Berlin. Very much especially in Berlin…) This little example comes from Amsterdam, and I appreciated several things about it. I was intrigued to see that it was mostly constrained to the blocks or rectangular material on the right side of the frame and mostly not on the bricks — almost as if these were somewhat well-mannered graffiti artists. The juxtaposition of shapes and colors interested me in its own right. And then there is that enigmatic “UNFUN” inscription in a somewhat neat sans-serif font, contrasting with the other colorful scrawls on this wall.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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

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

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

Hostel 36

Image Leave a comment
Hostel 36
Window and entrance to Hostel 36, Heidelberg

Hostel 36. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Window and entrance to Hostel 36, Heidelberg

By now we have visited Heidelberg several times, spending a total of perhaps a couple of weeks there. We have relatives (Patty’s brother and sister-in-law) who live there, so we almost always include a visit when we are in that part of the world. By now we’ve wandered a bit around the city, especially the Altstadt area and its surroundings, but also on the other side of the hill that runs along the opposite of the Neckar.

The Altstadt is, of course, a bit of a tourist destination. It is an older area of the city, many of the streets are narrow enough that there is little or no vehicle traffic, it is filled with restaurants, hotels, and other things that attract visitors, with historic churches, a university, and a large castle in the hills above. I recall that the first visit took us right up one of those streets filled with shops and restaurants. We still go there, but we also wander away from the “main drag” and into some of the back streets. It was on one such walk that I spotted this scene, a hostel with an unusual color exterior color scheme.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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

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

Photographs: France, Photographs: People, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Woman and Clock

Image Leave a comment
Woman and Clock
A woman gazes through the portal of a Musee D’Orsay clock towards Paris

Woman and Clock. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A woman gazes toward the Paris skyline through the portal of a Musee D’Orsay clock

I can tell something of a story on us regarding the Musee d’Orsay. On a previous visit to Paris we were trying to get to various specific locations including a few museums. However, we can be a bit “seat of the pants” when it comes to wandering around in such cities — rather than making specific plans we tend to decide things on the spot and/or wander around and see what we find. We knew we wanted to visit this museum, but it wasn’t until later on that visit that we made it there. We paid our admission, went inside, and discovered that we had perhaps 90 minutes left before it closed. Needless to say, we moved very quickly through sections of the place and missed a ton of stuff.

This time we wanted to go back and spend a more reasonable amount of time there. And we did. We got there in time to see a good portion of the marvelous exhibits. At one point we were getting hungry, and we ran into a restaurant on one of the upper floors and decided to stop. Overlooking the restaurant was a clock like what you see here. I was very confused. I knew I had seen “the” clock briefly on the previous visit, but I didn’t recall a restaurant… so I chalked up to, “they must have remodeled things and installed this restaurant by the clock. ” We finished eating, went back to visiting the exhibits, and eventually worked our way to the far end of the floor… where we found the other clock, the one that I had seen before. Usually there are a ton of people standing in front of the thing — and who can blame them — but for a moment I was able to frame this photograph with a solitary woman standing and looking through the clock’s windows towards the skyline of Paris.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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 | Twitter | Facebook |
Email

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