Tag Archives: black

Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Green Building, Windows

April 4, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A downtown San Diego building with windows and green walls

Right around April Fools Day we spent several days in San Diego. Oddly for a long-time Californian and a person who has visited that city before, I really don’t know San Diego that well. (Past visits have mostly been for various conferences and meetings, and I’ve tended to fly in, head straight to a hotel, do my business, head back to the airport, and leave.) On this visit – yes, for the first time – I spent some time photographing at Balboa Park, where there are a number of interesting subjects ranging from architecture to people. Lot’s of people!

We also walked around the downtown area of San Diego quite a bit, as that is where we stayed. Downtown San Diego has a character, as most cities do, but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. Architecturally, much of the area near where we were seems to be that type that is alternately attractive on account of its wide streets and very modern buildings but also a bit sterile for much the same reason. The overall place, not surprisingly, seems to mix up some of the Mexican influence, a wannabe tropical quality that occasionally reminds me just a tiny bit of Miami, and a somewhat toned-down version of the over-the-top LA Basin atmosphere. We were out walking in the morning on a weekday when I looked up as we passed the back of this building, with its interesting color combination and various window patterns.

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Photographs: Urban/Street

Woman in Black, Sidewalk, Petals

April 2, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The legs of a woman wearing black, cracked sidewalk, bright flower petals.

This is a photograph that I might not have gotten if I had been working in my more typical manner – e.g. shooting with a full frame DSLR and an assortment of lenses. Instead, I was shooting with a small rangefinder-style mirrorless camera and only a 14mm prime. (Roughly equivalent about a 24mm prime on a full frame camera.) Shooting this way encourages working quickly – with a single focal length there is much less to think about, and shooting happens more quickly and, in some ways, more instinctively.

For what its worth, the photograph was made while walking in San Diego’s Balboa Park, near a spot where these brilliantly colorful flower petals were falling from a nearby tree. I suddenly got the idea to shoot the lens and feet of the people walking in front of me, and it was serendipitous that this happened as we were walking through the flower petals.

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Tomales Bay Building, Morning Fog

February 12, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Detail of a Tomales Bay shoreline building with morning fog along nearby hills

Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I am fortunate to be within a few hours driving distance of the Point Reyes National Seashore, so I shoot there fairly regularly. I had a free morning on this early February day, so I decided to drive up that way with the intention of being there for dawn. I didn’t quite make it for the actual sunrise – at that point I was driving through foggy redwood forest – but I got to the road that travels along the edge of Tomales Bay on the way to the “point” shortly after sunrise, and as the fog was clearing from over the water and the hills.

This structure is what I think of as the “Launch for Hire” building, since a very large size with that announcement has been painted on both sides. I haven’t stopped to photograph here much at all in the past, but the early light was interesting on this morning – foggy to the north toward the entrance to Tomales Bay, and backlight fog and trees to the east – so I spent a bit of time photographing along here. I shot the building from both sides – the side facing into the “golden hour” early morning light, and the deeply shaded backside of the building with the very bright morning light and thinning fog beyond. In the latter case, there was a glow in the windows of this building, on pilings out over the water, from the light coming into its interior through windows on the far side facing the rising sun.

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

Colorado River, Dead Horse Point

February 6, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

The canyon of the Colorado River, from Dead Horse Point State Park, Utah

The light was a bit tricky when we drove out to Dead Horse Point to look at the famous view of the Colorado River as it loops below huge cliffs at the edge of Canyonlands National Park in Utah. It was nearing the middle of the day, so the soft morning and evening light was nowhere to be found. It was also hazy, with the slightly opaque air taking on distinctly blue colors. For all of these reasons, and also perhaps as a nod to old school landscape photography, I went with a black and white rendition of this photograph.

This is a truly remarkable bit of terrain. First, in the bottom of the canyon the Colorado River negotiates and abrupt horseshoe bend here beneath the tall cliffs leading up to the “Island in the Sky” portion of Canyonlands National Park. Above the river are a series of huge terraces form as the river eroded its way though the deep and old layers of sedimentary rock that characterize this area. Shooting with a slightly long focal length, I was able to eliminate most extraneous subjects and crop tightly around this area of massive cliffs and terraces.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: black

Green Building, Windows

Woman in Black, Sidewalk, Petals

Tomales Bay Building, Morning Fog

Colorado River, Dead Horse Point

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