Tag Archives: cold

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Snow, Ridgewood

January 15, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A snowy morning in the Ridgewood area of Queens, New York

For years, at least since our sons started moving there, we have visited New York City. People who know the place will likely note that we must be nuts for scheduling most visit for near the end of December or, wait for it, in August. (If you have been to New York City in August, you understand how unwise it is to go there once that time of year, and how crazy it is to voluntarily repeat the original blunder. ;-) Truth be told, while August still isn’t impressing us as a wonderful time to go, we actually do like going during the winter. The cold seems like a welcome change for these San Francisco Bay Area Californians, and there is quite a lot to see there at this time of year.

However, we usually miss out on snow, the one factor that would really make it feel like the winter we don’t experience at home. We have been snowed on there during our end-of-year visits, but typically no more than a trace, if that. I’m told that real snow is likely to arrive a few weeks later. This year we got our wish, as it were. We had a full week of terribly cold conditions, and on our last day there it finally did snow — not a lot, but enough. I made this photograph as we left an elevated subway (I know, oxymoron!) in the Ridgewood area, where we were able to look out over the urban environment and see snow-topped roofs fading into the distance.

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: People, Photographs: Urban/Street

At The Door

January 8, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Patricia Emerson Mitchell opens the door to a snowy Lower Manhattan street scene

We frequently visit New York at about this time of year. Our sons and their wives live in the area and we can often open up about a week of travel time. It is a fine time to visit — there is a lot of holiday stuff to see, if that is your interest, and it seems like the subways are a bit less crowded during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Plus, by comparison to our mid-summer visits, the potentially cold weather actually seems attractive… and a welcome change from “California winter,” with its 50-60 degree temperatures. But the timing of these visits often has us there just a bit too early for snow.

This year was different. Shortly after we arrived the weather turned cold — extremely cold by our California standards — with daytime temperatures barely (and not always) making it into the lower 20 degree range. We persisted, however, and did a lot of walking all over Manhattan, always carrying cameras and making photographs. For most of the week we saw weather forecasts predicting a chance of snow on the last two days of the visit, but those forecasts gradually reverted to merely “cloudy.” So we were pleasantly surprised when we opened the hotel blinds on our final morning and saw snow falling! We headed out, mainly to find breakfast and coffee, and enjoyed the transformed landscape. As you look at this photograph, try to also imagine that moment when you move between the snowy, cold, and windy street and the warm, inviting space of a restaurant, coffee shop, or the home of friends/family.

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Crosswalk, Upper East Side

January 1, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pedestrians in an Upper East Side crosswalk on a very cold winter day in Manhattan

Another freezing day in New York, another visit to a museum, another walk, and more photography. This time our plan was to visit the Guggenheim, on the Upper East Side along Central Park. Because we tend to stay on Pacific time when we go to New York — instead of my usual 5:30 wakeup time, I wake around 8:30 — we ended up stalling on various little tasks until nearly noon. Then we stopped for coffee, followed by a walk to a subway at our Lower Manhattan location, and then a subway ride up to a stop on Lexington to the east of the Guggenheim. We arrived to find that lots of other people apparently had the same idea — there was a long line snaking around the corner. We joined the line, in 20 degree temperatures, and then simultaneously noticed that the line wasn’t moving and that we were increasingly freezing. We gave up, and headed east to find a warm place to get something to eat.

After lunch — soup, of course! — we set out again, but with no particular goal in mind. We headed south on Lexington, with a plan starting to form that would take us over to and perhaps through part of Central Park before we picked up another subway train at the lower end of the park. As we walked down Lexington we were headed straight into the sun, and its headlong light made the atmosphere glow, bounced light off of building windows, and cast long shadows from the approaching pedestrians on the crowded sidewalk and crosswalk.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Trees and Pond, Winter Morning

April 20, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A row of winter trees stands along a frost-rimmed San Joaquin Valley pond

To me, this photograph looks deceptively warm, perhaps due to the warm color of some of the light and the distant fields beyond the trees. The truth is that it was freezing cold! The temperature was in the upper 20’s (cold for Californians!) and the air was damp as it always is this time of year in these marshy valley lowlands and there was thick frost on the ground.

We were here to photograph migratory birds once again. At this location, an official wildlife refuge, a perimeter road circles the place, and it is pretty much our routine to circle it more than once on our visits. The first pass is typically right around dawn, as was the case this time, and often seems to be in thick or – if we are lucky – clearing fog. Later circuits often reveal changing light, thinning fog, different birds, and warmer temperatures – until a final trip around the loop usually concludes with us shooting into the dusk period until there is no longer enough light for photography. Near one corner of the loop there is a parking area, an observation deck, and nearby short trail. (Hiking is not permitted in most of the refuge, as people hidden in cars are apparently perceived to be less threatening by the birds.) When we stop here I almost always do at least a momentary transition from wildlife photographer to landscape photographer and make a few photographs that don’t include birds at all. This pond and the row of bare trees on a levee along one side have attracted my attention almost every time I visit here, and seem to suggest to me something about the vast flat agricultural terrain of this part of the valley.

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: cold

Snow, Ridgewood

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Crosswalk, Upper East Side

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Trees and Pond, Winter Morning

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