Tag Archives: europe

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: France, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Travel

Stairs, Le Centre Pompidou

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Stairs, Le Centre Pompidou
Outside stairs at Le Centre Pompidou, Paris

Stairs, Le Centre Pompidou. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Outside stairs at Le Centre Pompidou, Paris

We had previously walked past the Pompidou Center museum but had not stopped, instead visiting other museums on our list. The structure is famous (or infamous, depending on your aesthetics) for its unusual architecture, which exposes lots of things that would usually be hidden beneath the skin of a more traditional building — ventilation ducts, stairs, escalators, structural reinforcements, and more. While the art inside the building was fascinating, the photographer in me was attracted to the structure itself.

I made this photograph from the ground level before we went inside. The simple “x” shape is superimposed on some of those exposed structural details, in this case a bunch of outside stairways. The color scheme of the building in this area is almost purely monochromatic — at first I thought I was looking at a black and white image, until I noticed a bit of yellow color along a margin. Since it was already monochromatic I decided to eliminate even that bit of color and go with a black and white rendition.

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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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: France, Photographs: Travel

Window and Plants

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Lush plants grow around a window of a stone building in Barbizon, France

Window and Plants. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Lush plants grow around a window of a stone building in Barbizon, France

Today I continue with my back-and-forth between photographs from a lengthy summer visit to several European countries and a following week-plus backcountry Sierra Nevada photography trip. Today it is back to Europe. (Anyone getting whiplash yet?)

Near the end of our trip we joined members of our extended American and European family for a week at a house in the French countryside near Fontainebleau. We have been doing something like this every other summer for the past few years — we get together, hang out, cook and eat, travel around a bit, and generally have a good and slightly lazy time. To be a bit more specific about our location, we were (just barely) walking distance from the village of Barbizon, which gives the appearance of being a sort of artist community, or at least a place where people attracted to that identity have chosen to live. It is a lovely little village and we visited several times, including near the end of the trip when I made this photograph of the plant-covered window of a local building.

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: France, Photographs: Urban/Street

Parked Scooter

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Parked Scooter
A scooter parked along a Paris street

Parked Scooter. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A scooter parked along a Paris street

I saw this scooter parked along a street in Paris — in the Le Marais area, if I recall correctly. In many urban European areas, at least that I’ve seen, such things are ubiquitous, along with the many urban bicycles. Here there is really little or no room for a car, but it is possible to squeeze in a bike or a scooter. The retro styling of these things is a lot of fun — they have an appearance that seems like it might have felt hyper-modern… about 40-50 years ago.

The scooter also reminds me of something that I rediscover to varying degrees when I travel, namely how much of what we do and expect is conditioned by familiarity with places and their customs. At one point on this trip we rented a car to drive from Paris (CDG airport) to a location southwest of the city where we would stay for a week. The area was semi-rural, but with towns and villages here and there. Driving in such places would be second-nature to me in the USA, but in France it was anything but! I had to actually try to understand and interpret traffic signs and graphics, something that takes considerably longer when the signs are unfamiliar and one is not a speaker of the local language. Even something as simple as knowing, for example, that it is apparently OK to park a scooter in a place like this would be an utter mystery.

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: France

Le Cirque de Venise

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Le Cirque de Venise
A stone wall, a weathered door, and an advertisement for a circus, near Barbizon, France

Le Cirque de Venise. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A stone wall, a weathered door, and an advertisement for a circus, near Barbizon, France

Near the end of this past summer’s lengthy travels (from New York to London, to many areas in Europe) we ended up in France, not far from Fontainebleau, where we joined members of our extended family for a week at a big old house we rented. After all of the previous travels from place to place, typically stopping in one city for no more than four nights, it was a relief to stay in one place for a week and to have time to slow down a bit.

Near the end of this stay, one morning we all decided to walk to the nearby town of Barbizon. Like so much in France, this place was virtually unknown to me. We walked through some fields and along a country road to get there, arriving to visit the studio of the artist Millet and to have lunch. Along the way I spotted this sign for what I assume to be a traveling circus.

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.