Tag Archives: hill

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Forest, Fog, Soft Light

Image Leave a comment
Forest, Fog, Soft Light
“Forest, Fog, Soft Light” — Soft morning light filtered through coastal fog on a forested hillside near the California coast.

It isn’t news that California and the West have been suffering under an extreme and long-lasting heat wave. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area it has been bad — though clearly it is much worse in other locations. This week I finally had enough, and I drove over the hills to the coast early in the morning to seek out fog. I found it! In fact, it was so thick on the coast (where the temperature was a blessed 55 degrees) that it interfered with my intended photography. So I followed side roads that took me inland to the edge of the fog, where soft light was starting to illuminate the landscape.

By most measures, this is a rather nondescript location. (I actually parked in from of a CalFire Station.) But across the small valley, trees led up the hillside, catching the soft light that was just barely penetrating the fog. There’s an additional detail here: A large wildfire swept through a few years back, denuding the landscape in many places. These trees at the bottom of the valley were spared, but you can see skeleton of dead trees on top of the ridge.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Instagram | Flickr | Facebook | Threads | Post | Email

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

Scroll down to share comments or questions. (Click post title first if viewing on the home page.)

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

Photographs: Europe, Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Deserted Street, Orvieto

Image Leave a comment
Deserted Street, Orvieto
“Deserted Street, Orvieto” — A narrow, deserted street in the Italian hill town of Orvieto.

It can be a challenge to photograph these narrow streets without people in a popular town such as Orvieto. One strategy is to photograph late in the day and even into the evening, but sometimes an even more promising approach is to go out very early. Most of the tourists aren’t out then, instead sleeping in before a leisurely breakfast in the morning or sitting in a restaurant in the evening. The difference is even greater in Orvieto, where many of the visitors only come for the day, heading back to their “home base” for the evening.

All of the streets here are narrow, but this is an even narrower side street. Unlike the familiar American grid street layout, there the narrow passageways curve and twist and take off in surprising directions. Several things in this photograph intrigue me. First, essentially everything you see is stone masonry, from the cobbled path to the walls and arches. Second, I suspect that these arches serve multiple purposes — both as passageways and to brace the facing buildings.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Instagram | Flickr | Facebook | Threads | Post | Email

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

Scroll down to share comments or questions. (Click post title first if viewing on the home page.)

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

Photographs: Europe, Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Orvieto House

Image Leave a comment
Orvieto House
“Orvieto House” — A tall house at the intersection fo two narrow streets in the hill town of Orvieto, Italy.

This Orvieto house caught my attention during one of our walks around this lovely Italian hill town last summer. The town is on a high tableland surrounded by green hills and valleys. It is bounded by steep inclines, so steep that most visitors take a funicular from the railroad station. Because of the town’s geography, a walk of any distance involves some up and down. Here the road two splits around this house, with one route rising and the other descending.

Orvieto is a day trip from Rome, though we arrived from the opposite direction and stayed for a couple of nights. This meant that we got to enjoy diminished crowds in the evening and morning, and we saw few people on this walk away from the town center toward a spot with a view of the surrounding countryside.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Instagram | Flickr | Facebook | Threads | Post | Email

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

Scroll down to share comments or questions. (Click post title first if viewing on the home page.)

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

Photographs: Europe, Photographs: Portugal, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Curving Street, Lisbon

Image Leave a comment
Curving Street, Lisbon
“Curving Street, Lisbon” — A narrow road curves past colorful buildings, LIsbon.

This photograph comes from our longish walk across Lisbon to climb up toward the St. George Castle. If you walk in Lisbon, get used to hills! We walked down a pretty good one from our lodgings, and before long we climbed the large hill topped by the castle. We didn’t go into the castle grounds, since we had some other ideas in mind, so we were soon ascending and descending the steep hills again.

I loved this little narrow street. Just about every thing about it is charming, The route gently curves, and you walk along pavement embedded with interesting patterns and colors. The buildings themselves are painted in striking colors, too. And, of course, it is so narrow that it isn’t really suited to vehicles larger than scooters.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Instagram | Flickr | Facebook | Threads | Post | Email

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

Scroll down to share comments or questions. (Click post title first if viewing on the home page.)

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