Tag Archives: black

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Black Oak, Meadow, Autumn

November 8, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A backlit black oak tree with autumn foliage stands in a meadow below Sentinel Rocks, Yosemite Valley

This black oak, like so many in Yosemite Valley, stands in a large grassy meadow. Although the autumn foliage of these trees may seem less spectacularly colorful than that of the big leaf maples and the cottonwoods, the black oak has a more subtle beauty in the fall. But when lit from behind, early or late in the day when the sun is low, the color of black oak leaves can be surprisingly intense. Off all the fall colors in the Valley, in some ways the combination of that of these oaks and the grasses of the meadows where they are found seems to most strongly speak of fall to me.

This single tree is in a meadow filled with black oaks. I would not be surprised to find that there are 100 of them here. On this afternoon I had gone to the meadow to photograph something different, a group of small cottonwood trees growing near the bank of the Merced River. Finishing that project, I was about to start back toward my car when I noticed that a short-lived beam of direct sun was coming down from an opening in the upper cliff walls and spotlighting this tree. Naturally, I changed my plans, took a little detour, and spent a few minutes with this tree.

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Photographs: England, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Textures, Photographs: Urban/Street

Brick Wall, London

October 11, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A painted and weathered brick wall beneath a London overpass

I have only a general recollection of where I made this photograph. I think it was on the south side of the Thames, probably somewhere beyond the Millennium Bridge and in an area of older narrow streets where we walked both to kill some time before an appointment and to wander and see what we could see.

There is, obviously, nothing all that exotic about this wall. In fact, I’ve likely photographed similar subjects in the SF Bay Area. I think several things caused me to stop and shoot it. First, to be honest, I was in a shooting mode – in other words I was shooting quickly and shooting a lot of frames. But beyond that, I was intrigued by the lights, muted by the narrow street and the fact – again, if I recall correctly – that this was shot near the edge of an underpass of some sort. Bricks often intrigue me, but here the layers of paint applied to the bricks, which really shouldn’t be painted, probably covers something that we are not supposed to see. The larger underlying area of black paint contrasts with the Halloween orange that must have been added later. But now new stuff has already been added to the wall on top of the old cover-up job.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: England, Photographs: Urban/Street

Blue Paint and Handrail, Tower Bridge

September 29, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Shiny blue and black paint on a wall and a handrail on the Tower Bridge, London

I made this photograph in quite the jet-lagged state – though I had recovered a bit from my initial bout that left me unable to do anything but sleep for an hour or two right after we arrived at our hotel in Kensington. I had a laugh-worthy plan to minimize jet lag – and like most such plans it failed miserably. I figured I would just move my wake up time an hour earlier every day as the trip to approached, and I was actually getting up very early in the morning right before we left. (I can report that it is very quiet and peaceful at 2:00 a.m… ;-) What I failed to consider was that I was also reducing the length of every day by one full hour for the better part of a week before travel… and almost entirely by losing sleep. Obviously, I had a big sleep deficit going by the time we left. On top of that, I was basically completely unable to sleep on the flight over – which is odd, since I can usually sleep on planes.

We arrived in London, took the underground to Kensington, got a bit lost, finally found our hotel, checked in… and I was so jet-lagged that I was incapable of doing anything at all useful. I slept for an hour or two and managed to achieve a state of modest consciousness. If nothing else, I was so tired at this point that I had little problem sleeping that night. So we got on the underground and took the train to the station by the Tower Bridge and walked across it. I was so out of it that I didn’t realize until a few days later than I had completely switched north and south directions! Somewhere I probably have some photographs of the whole bridge, but being the sort of photographer I am, I spent a bit of my time pointing that camera at odd things like this pattern of shiny blue paint, stone, and a black railing.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Railings, Rack, Sidewalk Shadows

September 8, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An accidental geometric abstraction of shapes formed by metal tubes of racks and railings and their shadows, San Francisco

On a late-Spring visit to San Francisco on the weekend when SFMOMA was last open before its two-year closing for remodeling and expansion, I arrived on the Caltrain from the South Bay very early in the morning and had time to wander the streets a bit before going to the museum. At one point I walked past a place close to the museum, a spot I have walked by many times before, and spotted this junction of lines, curves, shadows, and light and dark space.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: black

Black Oak, Meadow, Autumn

Brick Wall, London

Blue Paint and Handrail, Tower Bridge

Railings, Rack, Sidewalk Shadows

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.