Tag Archives: black

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Turret Skylight, SFMOMA

June 11, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Vertical format black and white photograph of light streaming through the upper reaches of the turret skylight above the atrium at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

This is a second photograph made during a recent visit to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, or SFMOMA, on the weekend before the place closed for two years of renovation and expansion work. Only days before did I realize that it was about to close and the extraordinary length of the closure, and I quickly adjusted my plans to get up there one more time. I wanted to wander the facility itself, but I especially wanted to see the excellent exhibit of the work of photographer Garry Winogrand.

This skylight is a dominant feature when the museum exterior is viewed from the west, where its tilted and round shape stands out from almost anything else nearby. Inside the building it creates a wonderful space full of light that somehow seems intimate, even though it is the highest point in a very large lobby atrium. The small diameter of the space and the walkway that splits it in two probably contribute to this effect. This photograph is a highly interpreted or stylized view of the subject, and is the result of a great deal of work in post-production – which almost seems somewhat ironic since the photograph was made handheld with a very small rangefinder style mirrorless digital camera.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Winter Surf, Big Sur Coast

June 10, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Huge winter surf breaks over rocky coastal islands along California’ Big Sur Coastline.

In mid-January waves of stupendous size came ashore along the California coastline, as they do at times every winter. The surf was caused by storms, but not storms that were at all visible here in California, where this was an unusually warm and sunny weekend, with clear skies and temperatures (in January!) in the low seventy degree range. As I understand it, the source of the large waves was a big Pacific storm far to the north, in the region of the Aleutian Islands, which was sending huge swells thousands of miles toward our coastline.

The news reports were making a big deal of so-called “sneaker waves” – huge waves that seemingly appear unexpectedly and sometimes wash over areas that might seem safe. Sometimes the reports overdo this sort of thing, but the warnings are justified, and this was especially the case during this occurrence. We were even surprised a bit ourselves. When we finally made it to this area along the Big Sur coast that is open to the ocean, we expected to see huge surf, but when we pulled over and looked it didn’t seem like anything all that extraordinary was happening. Yes, there were waves, but nothing that seemed out of the ordinary. However, as we grabbed gear and tripods and walked to an overlook on a bluff above the water a series of truly huge waves began to come ashore. It turns out that this pattern alternates periods of smaller waves with periodic intervals of much larger waves, and we certainly saw abundant evidence as gigantic waves completely overwhelmed these rocky offshore islands before continuing on to hit the shoreline and wash far up the beaches.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Marsh and Fog

June 9, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Water plants disappear into the fog.

On this late-November day, I had initially gone to a Central Valley wildlife refuge in hopes of photographing migratory birds. When I arrived the fog was so thick that birds were just about impossible to see. I went ahead and made a slow circumnavigation of the refuge, stopping to try to photograph birds from time to time. The first that I found – by hearing rather than seeing – were a group of Ross’s geese that were just barely visible through the fog, but not really photographable in the ways that I had in mind. A bit further along the perimeter road, an egret stayed put long enough that I could point the lens out the car window and make a few photographs, and shortly after that I came upon a group of white-faced ibises. I photographed these, too, but in the thick fog the results were not very exciting. I continued on around the refuge, finding nothing.

At this point I was starting to think that I might simply have to wait for the fog to clear, but instead I decided to make one more circuit and see if there was any way to photograph the landscape in this fog. As I did this, and temporarily let the bird photography idea slip aside, I started to see some interesting subjects in the plants growing in the water and on small drier clumps surrounded by the marsh. This simple photograph was made shooting handheld from the car, with the camera pointed into the thick fog which caused the landscape to fade into gray no more than 100 yards away.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Solitary Plant and Sculpted Rock

June 8, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A solitary box elder with autumn foliage grows at the bottom of a wash below water-sculpted rock walls, Zion National Park

Near the start of my late-October, 2012 photographic foray back to Utah with my friends Charlie and Karl, we spent a day – our first in Utah – mostly trying to “work” the various subjects along the Mount Carmel Highway across the high country of Zion National Park. This is, of course, a country full of all sorts of varied and interesting sedimentary rock layers that have been tilted and eroded in wonderful ways, and at this time of year the trees were beginning to take on fall colors.

At one point we dropped down from the road and wandered into a wash that first attracted our attention by means of the very brightly colored red maples. Once in the way, we started to investigate it a bit more, and we soon found a short slot canyon section where the walls were vertical and water had eroded these walls into curves and alcoves. This particular alcove seemed like it might be the site of an intermittent waterfall or seep, and this single tree was growing at its base just above the creek bed.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: black

Turret Skylight, SFMOMA

Winter Surf, Big Sur Coast

Marsh and Fog

Solitary Plant and Sculpted Rock

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