Tag Archives: cobblestone

Blue Door

Blue Door
“Blue Door” — Blue door, brick wall, cobblestone street, Shrewsbury, England.

I made this photograph the English town of Shrewsbury. (More about that place below.) If a photograph is “about” something, this one is about more than one thing. To be sure, it is a record of a specific spot in a particular town, a doorway to a building with a sign for “Alfred Mansell & Co. Auctioneers.”It is perhaps a record of some history, too, given the old brick walls, the weathered doorway, and the cobblestones at the bottom of the frame. But most of all, I think it is about color, the “temperature” contrast between the warm tones of partially-sunlit bricks and the very cool blues of the doorway in shadow.

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Strolling in Bologna

Strolling in Bologna
“Strolling in Bologna” — Pedestrains stroll along a narrow, curving street in Bologna, italy.

Sometimes my ideas about whether a photograph should be monochromatic or color turn out to be wrong. This street is quite colorful, with paint on the buildings that suggests the sandstone colors of Southwest American canyons. The soft light accentuated this effect and warmed those colors. But the more I worked on the photograph, the more that it seemed a case of “too much.”

In fact, the two central figure also disappear into the detail in the color rendition, and those colors, found throughout the rest of the frame, simply overwhelmed everything else. So gradually, step by step, my idea about how to interpret this scene shifted to thinking of it as monochromatic.


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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Steingasse, Altstadt-Heidelberg

Steingasse, Altstadt-Heidelberg
The narrow, cobblestone Steingasse in the old town section of Heidelberg, Germany

Steingasse, Altstadt-Heidelberg. Heidelberg, Germany. July 10, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The narrow, cobblestone Steingasse in the old town section of Heidelberg, Germany

As many tourists probably do, we entered the old section of Heidelberg after crossing the bridge to the old gate, passing though it, and walking up this narrow, cobblestone street, lined with restaurants. We probably actually managed to pass a few of the restaurants without stopping… before we finally gave in and sat down to eat.


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.