Tag Archives: ascend

Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Travel

Torre Del Moro Stairs

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Torre Del Moro Stairs
Stairway ascending to the top of the Torre del Moro, Orieto, Italy.

Torre Del Moro Stairs. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Stairway ascending to the top of the Torre del Moro, Orieto, Italy.

Yes, I know that photographs of winding staircases are a bit of cliche… but I CLIMBED these stairs, so I earned this picture! This is the inside of the Torre del Moro in Orvieto, a beautiful old tower more or less in the center of the town. We were in the midway through our romance with towers (see the next paragraph) when we climbed this one. We briefly debated whether or not to do it, but the description said there was an elevator to get us past the first 170 steps. It wasn’t working. But the view from the top (along with the rather close-up sound of the bells!) was spectacular.

I photographed this scene as we descended. I suppose a smarter photographer would have taken advantage of the excuse to pause during the ascent… but then it might have been hard to hold the camera steady as the heart pounded! We climbed a fair number of these towers during our trip, especially during the first half. The first was along the coast of Spain — the “tower of Hercules.” After that we ascended them in a number of other places. But eventually… the lure of yet another tower began to diminish and we tended to enjoy new cities from street level.

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: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Stairway, San Francisco

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Stairway, San Francisco
A steep stairway ascends through a residential area of San Francisco.

Stairway, San Francisco. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A steep stairway ascends through a residential area of San Francisco.

The terrain underlying the city of San Francisco is in many places quite complex. Before settlement it was a place of hills cut by streams, flatlands, and shallows that were later filled in to expand the available land area. I made this photograph in an area along a ridge where the “sidewalks” are sometimes more vertical than horizontal and mostly consist of stairways.

There’s something a bit mysterious about this bending stairway as it winds upwards and twists out of sight. The mixture of angles and textures here is also fascinating — wood and concrete, horizontal and vertical, rigidly aligned to the horizon and angled in odd directions.

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

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

Autumn Color Layers

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Autumn Color Layers
Layers of autumn color from aspen groves ascending an eastern Sierra Nevada slope.

Autumn Color Layers. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Layers of autumn color from aspen groves ascending an eastern Sierra Nevada slope.

This is one of those “rediscovered” photographs that I had originally left behind a couple of years ago. I found it again during the last few months while doing a review of some older raw files. I originally made several exposures of this group of trees with autumn foliage in the eastern Sierra Nevada, and I initially went with something framed a bit differently and using the landscape (horizontal) format. But coming back to the set of images, I noticed that layered effect of these trees and thought it might be a worthy photograph, too.

This grove is somewhat characteristic of the sorts of aspen trees we find in the Sierra Nevada. As friends often remind me (usually after retiring from visits to these other places), in places like Colorado and Utah and similar locations you can find seemingly endless groves of tall, thick, and straight trees. That’s quite rare here in my state. It isn’t impossible to find large groves, nor is it impossible to find thick and tall trees — but that’s not the most common situation. Often the trees are smaller and with distinct “personalities” — which is another way of saying that they many be twisted in interesting ways rather than straight and tall. But in this grove, we get a bit of (almost) everything. Behind that first line of small trees, which are likely encroaching on the foreground meadow, there is a grove of tall aspens. Beyond that, as the slope becomes steeper and more rocky, the trees once again begin to have that… “personality.”

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.

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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 Aspens, Hillside Grove

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Autumn Aspens, Hillside Grove
A grove of autumn aspens ascends an Eastern Sierra hillside.

Autumn Aspens, Hillside Grove. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A grove of autumn aspens ascends an Eastern Sierra hillside.

If you we thinking that I’d be finished with this year’s fall color photographs by now… well, you’d be mistaken! And this won’t be the last one either. To review, it was a strange color season for me in the Eastern Sierra. On the plus side, I made it up there to photograph, and the colors were more spectacular than in many other recent years. On the not-so-plus side, the pandemic made travel a bit more complex, and wildfire smoke interfered with photography… and breathing!

I made this photograph in a place that I originally thought had mostly revealed what it had to offer. But I stop here every year, look at many familiar things and think there’s nothing new to see, linger a bit, and then start to see elements of the scene that suggest new photographs. This is one of those. I’m sure I’ve looked at this frame in the past, but perhaps the colors weren’t quite right or it was a different time of day. Whatever the reasons, this time it seemed to work.

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.