Tag Archives: cathedral

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: England, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great

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Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great
Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great

Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great. London, England. July 6, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Main interior space of the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, London, England

Photographing this old church and surrounding facilities might serve as an example of what can happen if you don’t follow the crowds to the usual places when visiting a famous city such as London. Or, more accurately, it might be about what can happen if you do follow the crowds to those (deservedly famous and popular) places and then just wander off a bit aimlessly to see what else you might find.

We had initially been, if memory serves, sort of in the area of Trafalgar Square. At some point we ended up walking some blocks away from here to an area that we much less busy, since it was a real work area and this was a weekend. We were hungry, so we looked around for a pub and had some lunch. Leaving the pub we looked up the street and saw some interesting looking older buildings, so we just headed over that direction to see what we might find, and soon we saw the grounds of and entrance to the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew. At least on this day, this was not exactly a place swarming with tourists. In fact, there were hardly any. We decided to pay the small fee and spend a bit of time wandering around inside this very old church that is, in many places, filled with wonderful light. I made several photographs inside that I like, and in each one of them this light is a central feature. On a slight technical note, this is one of those photographs I made on this trip with the little Fujifilm X-E1 camera, here using the 14mm prime lens and shot handheld.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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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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: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Tall Trees, Meadow, Autumn

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Tall Trees, Meadow, Autumn
Tall Trees, Meadow, Autumn

Tall Trees, Meadow, Autumn. Yosemite Valley, California. October 30, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tall trees grow in a row in a meadow backed by cottonwood and black oak trees with autumn foliage

I guess I just can’t help myself when it comes to photographing in this Yosemite Valley meadow area – or in similar areas, for that matter. As I’ve written before, during the time of the year when the days are shorter and the sun is lower, the light in some of these places is constantly changing – pre-sunrise and post-sunset soft “blue hour” light, early and late direct sun over the upper edges of cliffs, shadow right after dawn and before sunset and when cliffs interrupt the light during midday hours. Other changes take place on a longer cycle – the stark quality of winter, snow covering everything when winter storms arrive, morning fog, trees newly green in spring or yellow and gold in fall. And there are many more things to see than just the “landscape size” things – wildflowers, fallen leaves, frost, and more.

So, yes, I visited and revisited the meadows during this fall’s end-of-October visit to The Valley. While I often focus on the black oaks that grow in these meadows, here I decided to focus on evergreen trees. This group stands almost evenly spaced in a row. I struggled with how to deal with their height when shooting from a relatively close distance, and then realized that by not including the whole tree I could emphasize the vertical lines of their trunks and perhaps suggest the even higher parts of the trees that are not visible here.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Meadow, Trees, Granite Wall

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Meadow, Trees, Granite Wall
Meadow, Trees, Granite Wall

Meadow, Trees, Granite Wall. Yosemite Valley, California. October 31, 2013.© Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The immense granite face of Cathedral Rocks looms behind trees of El Capitan Meadow in autumn afternoon light

This meadow, located between two of the largest cliffs in Yosemite Valley, is both an obvious place to make photographs – everyone does it – and a place of nearly infinite variations of light, season, and atmosphere. Sometimes when I’m in the Valley I may stop here two or three times during the day. As is the case in other spots in Yosemite Valley, the place changes radically depending upon what the light is doing – soft early morning or evening light, strong light coming down the Valley in the early morning, light blocked by cliffs at midday, strong backlight in the late afternoon. And many of these changes happen very rapidly. As I made this photograph I could virtually watch the shadow move over the trees from the right.

The granite face rising beyond this meadow – one of the two I mentioned above – has always attracted me for some reason. Although not as high as the much more famous El Capitan, in some ways it seems to me to look more forbidding. It seems to lack the obvious crack systems seen on El Capitan, and unlike the larger wall, which is often bathed in sun, this one is often in shadow. In winter it casts a shadow across this portion of the Valley in the middle of the day, though a low spot may allow a beam of light to sweep across this area in the late afternoon.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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: Architecture, Photographs: Austria, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Salzburg Cathedral

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Salzburg Cathedral
Salzburg Cathedral

Salzburg Cathedral. Salzburg, Austria. July 15, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The Salzburg Cathedral, in the city of Salzburg, Austria

While we stayed in the Schönau am Königssee area of Bavaria, we were very close to the AUstrian border and to the city of Salzburg. In fact, we ended up there on parts of at least four days during our week in Bavaria. Our train arrived at and departed from Salzburg, and on two other days we found ourselves in the area for various reasons. Of course, with our music backgrounds, neither Patty nor I could pass up the opportunity to visit the birthplace of Mozart – though we managed to resist the temptations of virtually all of the Mozart-focused tourist attractions, only taking time to walk past the building where he was supposedly born and then looking at but ultimately not purchasing any of the ubiquitous mozartkugeln, including the version that is supposedly “only available in Salzburg.” On the other hand, we were unable to resist the Salzburg “coffee culture,” which we enjoyed on more than one occasion!

The spectacular Salzburg Cathedral dominates, even in a city with many spectacular things. (If you look closely, you can spot a couple of the other church spires in this photograph.) The interior is, to my eye, astonishing, and I spent a good amount of time inside just standing and staring at the structure, the decoration, and the light. I made a few photographs there, too. It turned out that just the right viewpoint for this exterior view – in more than one way – was from a hillside terrace restaurant that we visited twice, sitting outdoors and overlooking Salzburg as we had late lunch.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.