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Backpacking Photography Season Once Again!

Backpackers, Near Milestone Basin
Backpackers, Near Milestone Basin

Backpackers, Near Milestone Basin. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

It seems like a good time to once again share my Backpacking Photography Equipment post, since summer is nearly upon us, and many of you will soon be joining me to head into the back-country to make photographs. Some of you  are trying to figure out the best balances of gear, weight, bulk, and complexity for doing photography on the trail using the trial and error (trail and error? trail of terror?) approach. Few years back I thought it might be helpful to share “my own backpacking equipment” list along with some ideas about how to select and use it.

The article is here: My Backpacking Photographing Equipment.

Enjoy! And see you on the trail!

A little more about the photograph included in this post… The two backpackers are my long-time “trail buddies,” Owen and Caroline, with whom I’ve spent many weeks on the trail in the High Sierra. On this trip we visited a lonely and less-visited area in the Upper Kern River drainage. The night before we had camped in a place where it was almost possible to convince oneself that no one else had been there before – a truly rare and cherished Sierra experience. The next morning we descended a drainage that passed through beautiful rock-garden meadows filled with tumbling streams. As the two of them crossed this meadow I quickly dropped my pack and made a couple of handheld shots.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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.

2011 Favorites

It is always very difficult to select a set of my annual “favorite” photographs. I inevitably find that I have left out photographs that others like a great deal, and I know that I include some that I like but which may not appeal as much to others. And I always want to include more! :-)

With that in mind, here is a group of slightly more than twenty favorite photographs that I made in 2011. Criteria for inclusion, loosely and subjectively applied, included: a desire to include a wide range of my work, what others told me they liked, photographs that have positive personal associations for me, and element of randomness.

There is a story behind every photograph that I make. (As anyone who has talked to me about one of my photographs probably knows – I can go on… and on… and on… about any of them!) If you want to know more about any of the photographs, you can click on them to go to the original posts here at the blog. And I’d love to hear your reactions to the set, along with any questions you have – there is a place for comments at the bottom of the page.

I hope you enjoy my 2011 Favorites!

Dan

(There is also a gallery version of 2011 Favorites – which may be better for low bandwidth connections.)

Yellow Buildings, Shadows, Moving Clouds - Night photograph of two large yellow buildings, shadows, and streaks for clouds moving across the sky above the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, California.
Yellow Buildings, Shadows, Moving Clouds - Night photograph of two large yellow buildings, shadows, and streaks for clouds moving across the sky above the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, California.

Continue reading 2011 Favorites

All of My 2011 Photographs. Yes, All of Them. Really.

Everything from 2011…

This youtube video includes all of the photographs posted at my blog during 2011.* Yes, all of them! The photographs appear more or less in the order they were made, so this forms a sort of year-long overview. Since it does include everything, there are going to be a few, uh, slow moments in the video. (I do not recommend viewing at full screen size on large monitors since the original images used in the video were relatively small.)

If this is a slow day for you, you could even watch the whole thing!

I put this together while doing initial work on the 2001 Favorites list, an annual project of assembling a set of what I regard as some of my best work of the past year. I have some ideas about which images will make the cut for that more limited set, but I’d love to hear your opinions about what you think should be included, too. I’ll post the “finalists” for the 2011 Favorites sometime in the next week or so.

* OK, I made a lot more photographs in 2011 than what you see here. But most will never be seen in public. :-)

(Update: A few people asked “why no music to accompany the photographs?” This brings up a whole series of thoughts that I should explore in depth at some point, but which I’ll mention briefly for now. Let me get the easy one out of the way first – this wasn’t meant to be a “real” production. It was just a way for me to string together a large number of images as part of my own review of my 2011 photographs. On to the more complex issues…

Some of you may know that my academic training is in music. So, for me, adding music to images is not a simple thing – I’m afraid that I’m cursed with thinking “too much” about what it means and how it works together. For me, the idea of just “adding some music” is not a simple idea at all. In fact, it raises some questions about why we think that individual photographs are worthy of consideration in silence… but sequences of them seem to raise expectations that a musical accompaniment will be provided. Finally, given the diverse images in this large set it is hard for me to come up with a meaningful musical accompaniment that somehow ties in with the images in more than a random way. I suppose that I really need to compose my own… )

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | FacebookGoogle+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.

The Nocturnes 20th Anniversary Photography Exhibit

The Nocturnes 20th Anniversary Photography Exhibit
Opening Reception: November 9, 2011, 6:30 – 9 p.m.
Free

Exhibit runs through December 3rd.

Harvey Milk Photo Center
50 Scott Street, Duboce Park
San Francisco, California 94117
(415) 554-9522

“In 1991, ten pioneering Bay Area photographers displayed their work as “The Nocturnes” in a curated show on night photography. Twenty years later, The Nocturnes are still having “full moon gatherings”, educating new photographers, and enjoying the camaraderie of like-minded artists that realize that some of the best photos are taken after the sun sets. This curated exhibit is a retrospective on the work of some of the most well-known night photographers as well as those just getting started.” (From the event web site.)

I’m pleased to say that two of my prints will be included in this show. If you are a San Francisco Bay Area night photographer, a fan of night (and other) photography, or happen to be visiting the area, I invite you to drop in and see some wonderful night photography by a diverse and talented group of photographers. Maybe I’ll see you at the opening reception on November 9!