Tag Archives: cast

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

Sand Dune Shadows

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Sand Dune Shadows
Creosote plants cast long shadows across sand dunes in early morning light.

Sand Dune Shadows. © Copyright 2022.G Dan Mitchell.

Creosote plants cast long shadows across sand dunes in early morning light.

On every visit to Death Valley National Park I like to combine return visits to places I have visited before with visits to new locations. In the former case I often continue to expand my knowledge of familiar subjects and try to see them in new ways. In the latter I bring what I already have learned about this landscape to these new locations and see how I can draw on that to understand these new places. I made this photograph in a place that I’ve long thought about visiting and finally got to on this trip.

I camped nearby overnight, which gave me the opportunity to photograph in evening and morning light. On that first evening it was exciting to head out on the walk to this new place, unsure of what I would find or how I would photograph it. Early the next morning, as I walked across nearly the same route, the place was already starting to feel like “mine” a little bit, both from the previous night’s visit and from recognizing features familiar to me from elsewhere in the park. These creosote bushes were in a flat area at the base of taller dunes, and as the sun rose over the tops of these dunes the plants cast long shadows.

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: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Pedestrians, Lexington Avenue

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Pedestrians, Lexington Avenue
Pedestrians cast shadows as they walk past reflecting windows on a Lexington Avenue sidewalk, Manhattan

Pedestrians, Lexington Avenue. Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Pedestrians cast shadows as they walk past reflecting windows on a Lexington Avenue sidewalk, Manhattan

I think that so-called street photography (which might be termed “urban landscape” photography) can do many things. Some try to constrain it, offering limiting definitions that call for monochrome, handheld cameras, photographs featuring people, and a certain direct approach to dystopian unpleasantness. While it can be that, it can be other things, too. The focus can be the light, the geometry, the individual and collective people, oddities, visual beauty, the constructed environment, and much, much more. And (despite this example!) there is nothing requiring it to be black and white and look like it was created with the photographic technologies of any particular era.

In this case, my thoughts were mostly about shapes and light when I made this photograph. (That doesn’t mean that we aren’t free to make other associations.) On this date, close to the winter solstice, the light shines obliquely up streets like this one in Manhattan, and because this section of Lexington is relatively wide and in an area with few really tall buildings, quite a bit of that light finds its way down to the street and sidewalk. As I walked into this light, I was looking for certain effects that are mostly found in such urban environments, especially the multi-directional light produced when the direct sunlight combines with light reflected from buildings and windows.

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.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Holiday Lights, Shadows

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Holiday Lights, Shadows - Late afternoon light on holiday lights on a trellis casts shadows on a cloth backdrop.
Late afternoon light on holiday lights on a trellis casts shadows on a cloth backdrop.

Holiday Lights, Shadows. San Jose, California. December 28, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Late afternoon light on holiday lights on a trellis casts shadows on a cloth backdrop.

For some reason, each year around this time it occurs to me to simply walk out my front door and wander around making photographs more or less in my neighborhood. It is an interesting experience that I think every photographer should try. The first time I tried this locally I “saw” things that I had not noticed during decades living in the area. In addition, looking for things to photograph in what might seem like an unlikely location serves to “tune up” my ability to see, and it helps me renew my ability to look past the obvious to find different subjects and different ways to look at them.

At one point on this “photo walk,” I wandered through a parking lot behind some shops. I photographed the back of a building that had an interesting shadow from an exterior staircase and around which interior furniture was arranged… outside. Then as I walked back across the parking lot I happened to see this trellis covered with strings of holiday lights, catching the warm late-afternoon sun and casting shadows on a sheet of canvas hung behind it.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Pipe, Sidewalk, Wall with Tree Shadow

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Pipe, Sidewalk, Wall with Tree Shadow

Pipe, Sidewalk, Wall with Tree Shadow. San Jose, California. January 4, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early evening shadows from a nearby tree fall on shop wall behind leaf littered sidewalk and pipe barricade.

A theme on this day’s urban walk was the patterns cast by late afternoon tree shadows on a variety of walls. This example is very close to my home, and the scene is truly unremarkable – you might think of it almost as a “photograph of nothing.”

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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