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Fall Color, Birch Tree

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Fall Color, Birch Tree
A birch tree provides early autumn color in the Fontainebleau Forest, France

Fall Color, Birch Tree. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A birch tree provides early autumn color in the Fontainebleau Forest, France

My first “fall” color photograph of 2018 comes from… France! We recently returned from a forty-day trip, mostly in Europe, and we were in France for most of the final two weeks. We started with a short return visit to Paris, but then we met other family members in the area near Barbizon and Fontainebleau. We were there for a full week, which gave us plenty of time to explore the area. One of the interesting features is a natural one, the forest of Fontainebleau. This is not like conifer forests of the American West where I spend so much of my time — the terrain is nearly flat (with only small hills) and the trees are mostly conifers. Fontainebleau also features some remarkable boulders, and I should be able to share some photographs of those later on.

In was, in fact, those boulders that brought us to the location where I made this photograph. We made a short hike into the forest and climbed one of those small hills to find it covered with the boulders. As others began to leave I stuck around a bit longer and found this birch tree that was just beginning to get fall color.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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: Germany, Photographs: Urban/Street

Time To Dance

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Street art in Berlin, Germany

Time To Dance. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Street art in Berlin, Germany

I made this photograph in Berlin, not too far from the “East Side Gallery,” which is a still-standing remnant of the Berlin Wall that was turned over to artists and which is now covered by paintings. The scene in this photograph is not part of the “gallery,” but was instead a graffiti covered wall we passed on the way to the wall. I don’t make a habit of photographing graffiti, often because I don’t want to contribute the notoriety of some folks who vandalize public and private property. But here the stuff is everywhere and seems to have become a part of the environment, so I’m making an exception.

Besides the wild colors and patterns of this street art, there was another reason for photographing it. While I don’t know “her” cultural significance, the figure in the center of the scene keeps showing up in photographs of mine. I encountered and photographed her twice on a visit to Paris two years ago. In one photograph she appears on a wall, partially obscured by ivy. In another, one of my favorite photographs, she is one of several related figures pasted onto a Le Marais wall behind a small group of pedestrians. Oddly, some of the surrounding “stuff” on this wall seems very similar to that in the Paris photographs, making me think that he appearance may not be quite random.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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: Germany, Photographs: People, Photographs: Urban/Street

Red Wall

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Red Wall
A person walks in front of a painted section of the Berlin Wall

Red Wall. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A person walks in front of a painted section of the Berlin Wall

Before I say much about this photograph, a bit of background. Near the start of August 2018 we departed from California’s West Coast on a trip that would last forty days. We started with a brief visit to New York City, followed by another brief visit to London — both great places to visit and to adapt more slowly to the time zone changes. From there we made a rough loop that took us to Amsterdam, Berlin, Nuremberg (briefly!), Bayreuth (site of the famous Wagner festival), Heidelberg (for rest and recuperation… and laundry!), Vienna, Paris, and then a week outside of Paris near Barbizon with family. Whew! It was a great trip, with a few familiar places and some that were new to us. Along the way we had lots of opportunities to make photographs, and I’ll be starting to share some of them over the next few weeks and months.

We had three full days (four nights) in Berlin, a city that neither of us had visited before. We don’t travel with tour groups, so we were mostly on our own to explore, and most of our exploring was done on foot. On our last full day we headed east from where we were staying, eventually making our way to the “East Side Gallery.” This is a large section of the Berlin Wall that was not knocked down, but instead turned into a vast canvas for artists. My approach to photographing such a thing isn’t precisely to photograph the art itself, but instead to try to place it in its surroundings and/or photograph people interacting with it — which is the case with this man dressed in red who walked in front of this red section of the former “red” wall.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Email

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

Photographs: France, Photographs: Urban/Street, Photographs: White Mountains

Open Gate and Courtyard

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Open Gate and Courtyard
A gate opens to a courtyard, Paris

Open Gate and Courtyard. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A gate opens to a courtyard, Paris

This photograph was one in a series of quick snaps — street photography done while on the move, with barely time to stop and compose the image. We ended up here almost by accident. We were working our way towards a museum at which there was an exhibit of photography that seemed interesting, and our route took us through this old area.

The gate was open as we walked past, revealing an interior courtyard. It was entirely empty, except for one very well dressed man, sitting on a step near the wall and staring intently at his cell phone.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Email

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