Tag Archives: green

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Columbus Tower

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Columbus Tower - The green exterior of Columbus Tower, San Francisco
The green exterior of Columbus Tower, San Francisco

Columbus Tower. San Francisco, California. August 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The green exterior of Columbus Tower, San Francisco.

This striking “flatiron” style building stands on a thin corner along Columbus Avenue which angles across San Francisco between the financial district, through North Beach, and eventually toward the waterfront. I had seen the building for many years, but hadn’t stopped to wonder about its story at all until I made this photograph. It was apparently constructed right after the 1906 earthquake, making it now over a century old. Much later in its interesting history it apparently begin to fall into disrepair. Eventually it was purchased by Francis Ford Coppola, who used it for his businesses.

On one of my “personal photo walks” though sections of San Francisco, I passed by after stopping for coffee in North Beach and heading back toward Market Street. The building is striking in many ways. The flatiron design always stands out, as the building is very narrow and very tall and stands at the end of a very narrow block of buildings. The intricate exterior would be worthy of attention even without its striking copper green color. I photographed the building from very close – an approach that I’ve been working with recently – placing a street lamp in front of the building and allowing the perspective distortion to remain in the shot.

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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Purple and Yellow Lilies

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Purple and Yellow Lilies - Purple and yellow lilies in the Commemorative Garden at the Gene and Irene Wockner Hospice Center
Purple and yellow lilies in the Commemorative Garden at the Gene and Irene Wockner Hospice Center

Purple and Yellow Lilies. Kirkland, Washington. August 1, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Purple and yellow lilies in the Commemorative Garden at the Gene and Irene Wockner Hospice Center.

Yes, more lilies… These were also photographed in the Commemorative Garden at the Wockner Hospice in Kirkland, Washington. While I probably spent more time on some nearby daylilies that were bright red and yellow, these darker purple variants were nearby in the same shaded area of the garden.

For those who like equipment talk, a bit of information. (I’m not immune, but this subject can become a distraction from photography) I made this series of photographs using a 135mm f/2 prime lens. This lens lets me place the sharper portions of the flowers against a soft, blurry background, and even lets me blur portions of the main subject – the slightly long focal length and the large aperture make for very narrow depth of field.

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 | Facebook | Google+ | 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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Day Lilies, Wockner Hospice Garden

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Day Lilies, Wockner Hospice Garden - Day lilies growing in the Commemorative Garden at the Gene and Irene Wockner Hospice Center, Kirkland, Washington.
Day lilies growing in the Commemorative Garden at the Gene and Irene Wockner Hospice Center, Kirkland, Washington.

Day Lilies, Wockner Hospice Garden. Kirkland, Washington. August 1, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Day lilies growing in the Commemorative Garden at the Gene and Irene Wockner Hospice Center, Kirkland, Washington.

Thanks to the several people who have told me that these are almost certainly daylilies. (I originally used two words, “day lilies,” to title this and I’m going to leave the title that way for now.) I’ve also been told that the name reflects the short blooming period of the individual flowers, which might remain in full color for only a “day.” While I did not know the name of the flowers, I certainly could tell that the blooms did not last long. In fact, in this photograph, the buds of incipient flowers are visible above and to the right of the main flower, and one that has already run its course is near the top of the bright red and yellow flower.

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 | Facebook | Google+ | 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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Flowers, Wockner Hospice Center Gardens

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Flowers, Wockner Hospice Center Gardens - Flowers photographed in the Commemorative Garden at the Gene and Irene Wockner Hospice Center, Kirkland, Washington
Flowers, Wockner Hospice Center Gardens

Flowers, Wockner Hospice Center Gardens. Kirkland, Washington. August 1, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Flowers photographed in the Commemorative Garden at the Gene and Irene Wockner Hospice Center, Kirkland, Washington.

During the past week and a half I spent a great deal of time in view of the beautiful and quiet garden in which these flowers were found. I think they are lilies, but I’m not the world’s greatest flower identifier (to say the least!), and I would welcome an accurate identification from anyone who knows. After looking at the garden from indoors for a week, I finally decided to take a slow and quite walk through it one afternoon, and I made a few photographs as a sort of meditation.

The reason I was at this place was not, of course, a happy one. My mother, Elinor Danforth Mitchell, entered the hospice a week and a half ago after suffering a serious stroke at the age of 93, a stroke that was the sort she was undoubtedly thinking about when she gave us advance instructions (which was so like her!) about what to do should this happen. She not only lived to 93 (like her sister “Dolly,” and her mother Nora), but she was amazingly resilient as she faced a series of challenges during the past few decades, beginning with the loss of her husband, Richard S. Mitchell, over 20 years ago and continuing with health challenges including arthritis and macular degeneration that left her nearly blind. (A bright spot though – in the past month or two, a procedure she had earlier this year had actually given her back some of her sight, much to the amazement of all of us and much to her pleasure.) Through it all, she remained as positive as she had always been. About her blindness, she had said that getting angry or depressed wouldn’t help, so she was just going to accept it and move forward – and she did. So in her eighties she figured out how to be almost completely self-sufficient in her apartment, and people who met her often did not even realize at first that she had lost her sight. Perhaps most important to her, she kept her mental acuity right up until her stroke. She could – and frequently would! – recite the birthdays of four children, four children-in-law, eleven grand children and more. As my sister wrote recently, she could probably tell you, to the penny, what she paid for the Thanksgiving turkey in 1976!

All four of her children were scheduled to visit to help her with a move from her apartment to new living arrangements, and two were to arrive on the day of her stroke. This meant that all four of us were able to be with her during the week and a half until she passed away quietly on August 2, 2012.

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 | Facebook | Google+ | 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.