Tag Archives: brown

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

Window Shadows and Reflections

August 19, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The shadows and faint reflections of a window create patterns on a wall in Salzburg, Austria

Although we did not actually stay in Salzburg during out July 2013 travels, we managed to end up there on four of our 7 days in Bavaria. Our trail from Heidelberg arrived in Salzburg and our return train departed here. On a couple of other days we were traveling around the area to visit various features not far from Salzburg, so we ended up there for a few hours – on two occasions having a late lunch, taking part in Salzburg’s “coffee culture,” and then wandering around. We did see some of the main tourist places, such as the square near the Salzburg Cathedral, the castle, and the narrow and bustling (and a bit uncomfortably commercial) streets of the old downtown, but we also managed to walk through a few less busy areas.

Some of these walks took us through some very narrow and old streets between the main part of old Salzburg and the outlying area where we parked. Here the buildings sit right up against the streets, and the streets themselves were obviously constructed in a pre-automobile era since they are barely a single car wide. Many things intrigued me about these narrow streets beside their mere narrowness: the various muted colors of the buildings, the ways the streets twist and turn and come together at odd angles, the interesting way that the light played on the scene as it came down from far above or shone down street that aligned with the sun, and some of the architectural features such as the windows and the interesting metal street lights that seemed to be everywhere. In this photograph the sun was rather high in the sky but almost in line with the street, and the image of the shadows of the open windows almost mirrors the fainter pattern of the reflections from the glass.

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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Maple Leaves and Sandstone

July 13, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Fallen autumn maple leaves lie on pink sandstone slabs in the high country of Zion National Park

Wind is not usually the photographer’s friend, at least when the photographer is shooting natural subjects that include foliage. Later on this trip we were stymied by strong winds when shooting in the Escalante River Canyon, as the trees and leaves were being whipped around in the gale. But the same winds that create these problems – and I was experiencing some of them with tree photographs on this day, too – also bring down the autumn leaves and in the right conditions can create a thick carpet of the wild fall colors.

This photograph, like quite a few I have shared recently, was made in the bottom of a wash where leaves tend to collect, but by means of water flow and, as here, due to the wind. These maple leaves ranged in color from yellow-gold through orange to almost red, and here they littered the rocks in the bottom of the channel. Like spring flowers, these colors are a fleeting thing, and the leaves on the ground quickly blow away or turn brittle and brown.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Brown-eyed Evening Primrose

July 9, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Brown-eyed Evening Primrose flowers and buds, Death Valley National Park

Going through some older Death Valley photographs near the end of 2012, I came across a few photographs of small desert flowers including this one of (what I’m pretty certain is) Brown-eyed Evening Primrose. (I’m certain it is a primrose, and it seems to fit the description of the specific form.) I’m not sure why this and a few related photographs had sort of disappeared into the raw file collection, though every time I go back through the old original files I find something interesting that I missed the first time around.

Even though it has now been several years, I recall quite specifically making this and the other similar photographs. I had driven to a well-known Death Valley location – one of the “icons” – quite early in the morning, and as I looked around near that subject, I saw some color on a small, rocky hill just off the highway. I decided to investigate, so I walked over there with my gear and wandered up onto the small hill. (I suspect that anyone who had seem me poking around over there might have wanted to yell, “Hey, you, the photograph is over this way!”) It had rained recently and what I found was a fairly astonishing number of new wildflowers that were just beginning to come to life in this seemingly barren and rocky area. I ended up photographing a number of different types of flowers and even surprises such as a big green caterpillar!

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

Cottonwood, Fallen Monolith, and Cliff

May 20, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sunlight reflected from nearby canyon walls illuminates an autumn cottonwood tree in front of a fallen sandstone monolith and vertical cliff face.

I may be repeating a story I’ve previously told, but here goes. Earlier during my late-October visit to Utah we had wandered into this area, only to be largely stymied by clouds, cold, absurdly strong winds, and even a bit of rain. It was a bit disappointing, in that we had really looked forward to visiting this portion of the Escalante River, and when we started out in the early morning and saw a lot of beautiful fall color we thought we were in for a good day of shooting. Although that day was not a complete loss, it wasn’t what we hoped for – and by the end of the day we were struggling against very strong winds and cold.

Fortunately, nearly a week later we found ourselves back in roughly the same area of Utah, and as we considered the next day’s possible shooting locations the idea of giving this spot a second try came up. After considering that alternatives of trying a new location or going back, we decided to go back. It was a good decision! Where the first visit had been cold, cloudy, windy and even a bit damp, the second visit brought warmer conditions, almost completely clear skies… and most important, nearly windless conditions. (At one point we were cautiously admitting to one another that we had made exposures of foliage that lasted as long as a couple of seconds!) Near one large bend in the canyon there was a spectacular abundance of “targets” – brilliant cottonwood and box elder trees, beautiful canyon walls of various colors, fallen leaves, and more. On the previous visit we had all looked at this little scene of a large fallen section of the canyon wall with golden cottonwoods growing all around, and then pretty much continued on since the trees where being whipped around by the wind. But on this second visit the wind was calm, and light was reflected into the scene from sunlit sandstone walls to our left.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: brown

Window Shadows and Reflections

Maple Leaves and Sandstone

Brown-eyed Evening Primrose

Cottonwood, Fallen Monolith, and Cliff

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