Tag Archives: hill

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

Curving Street, Lisbon

Image January 29, 2024 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

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.

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

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Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Slopes

Image December 7, 2023 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn aspen trees rise from a valley toward the Sierra Nevada crest.

This little valley running along the base of the eastern slopes of the Sierra was on my agenda for this trip. But due to trying to squeeze in visits to numerous locations I couldn’t get to all of them in the perfect, soft, early and late day light. I arrived at this spot in the late afternoon, when the sun was backlighting these trees.

The answer groves here are among the most extensive I know of. They are not fully continuous, but there are quite a few of them and they are draped across the slopes, rising high up to where they meet the conifer forest. While the daytime sunlight isn’t my favorite for aspen photography, here the backlight intensifies the colors of the leaves.

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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Photographs: Europe, Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Travel

Tree and Wall

Image October 5, 2023 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Although I don’t think of myself as _just_ a “nature photographer,” my roots are in that sort of photography. Even when I’m focused more on street photography or travel photography, I am still drawn to nature subjects. In fact, sometimes I find them almost more compelling set against the urban landscape — partly because seeing them there reaffirms their significance to us a humans and partly because of how these things relate to that urban world.

I photographed this tree in Orvieto, Italy. While the tree is “natural,” its setting is anything but. It grows right up against this weathered and distressed wall in a narrow walkway between tall buildings. Direct sunlight only penetrates do the bottom of this urban canyon briefly, and the rest of the time the scene is in shade. (As with so many of these cityscapes of narrow streets, I am reminded of photographing in the red rock canyons of the American Southwest.)

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.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Above the Fog

Image May 9, 2023 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A monterey cypress on a rocky hill a obove fog shrouded coastline, Point Lobos.

This was a beautiful morning at the Point Lobos State Reserve along the upper Big Sur coast south of Monterey, California. I arrived to find thick fog — which is a good thing! It stuck around longer that usual, gradually lifting and thinning, starting to allow a bit of filtered, directional light in, and then dissipating. When I made this photograph the fog was still low, so low that at times it drifted below my camera position along the edge of a coastal cliff.

In different light this tree might produce a bright scene, but in this fog the effect is darker. I positioned myself just to the side of the tree, enough to make the far headland visible. It isn’t easy to see from the photograph, but to my left here was a substantial drop-off straight to the ocean.