I have a somewhat embarrassing confession to make about this photograph. I know that I made it in a church in the Belgium town of Ghent… but I failed to record which church it was! In my (weak) defense, this is a town of many churches — I don’t think I’ve seen many others with so many steeples. And after a few weeks of visiting Various European cities it is possible that I was starting to suffer from an overdose of church architecture.
Continue reading Church Interior, Ghent
This beautiful church in Brussels, the Eglise de Notre-Dame Des Victoire, doesn’t seem to be on the tourist map. But we think it was well worth the visit. We walked there from our lodgings in the touristy old part of Brussels. Walking away from there changed our perspective on the city. It appeared that we may have been the only tourists at this church.
Entering the church it was rather dark. But once our eyes adjusted to the natural light, we noticed that sunlight was streaming in through stained glass windows along its east side . At the front of the church, the stained glass windows comprised most of the vertical surfaces, and this created a lovely, light-filled area.
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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email
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There’s perhaps more going on in this photograph than meets the eye. Some elements didn’t fully register when I made the exposure, and in all likelihood there are more that I don’t yet understand. The photograph is from the Kosovo town of Peja, and “Birra Peja” is reportedly made from the water of the White Drin River, an important element of the Kosovo landscape with its source in the mountains just outside town.
The first thing that I noticed was the stenciled blue text on the white wall, along with the (hard to see) red stencil of a person whom I presume to be a Kosovo political figure of some sort. (The English text says “WHO ARE WE?!”) But the red signs, near and far, were also obviously part of the attraction of the scene, as were the particular products: the beer, a drink called “GO+,” and the smaller “Prima Pizza” sign. I’ll leave readers and viewers to ponder what else might be there.
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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email
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This is a small section of a wall in Brussels, Belgium. We passed it while out on a very long (almost all day) walk through the city. I’m fascinated by walls like this one, where layers of personal messages and markings have built up over time, juxtaposed in sometimes-surprising ways to produce a kind of found art.
These things often consist of some combination of actual “art” (often small, personal drawings), bits of text including tags and quotes, random smears of paint, remnants of paper fliers in the process of weathering and falling off. They become short-term time capsules as layers build up, with the newest material on top and the oldest visible through the newer materials in places.
Leave a comment or question using the form. (If you are reading this on the home page, click the article title to see the full article and the comment form.
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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email
All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.