Buildings of the lower east side of Manhattan, seen through the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge.
My son kept suggesting a walk across – or at least on to – the Brooklyn Bridge, so when the weather finally cleared up on our last full day in New York City and we found ourselves wandering around Lower Manhattan near the entrance to the pedestrian walkway across the bridge, we really had no choice.
It is hard – perhaps impossible? – to make a truly new photograph of the bridge, at least for this first time photographer of this New York icon. I do have a few frames of the masses of cables ascending to the tower closest to Manhattan, a scene we’ve all seen before, and I probably won’t be able to resist posting at least one of them eventually
I have no idea whether or not a shot like this one is familiar to those who have seen more photos of the bridge than I have, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it is a typical view. In any case, I was fascinated by the dense web of cables, the fact that they are much thinner than bridge cables that I’m familiar with, and the appearance of the many buildings along the east short of Manhattan Island both north and south of the bridge.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Black and white photograph of backlit Half Dome framed by steep Yosemite Valley canyon walls including the face of El Capitan.
Allow me one more photograph in the recent sequence of black and white photographs of “Yosemite icons.” On most drives into and out of the Valley I stop and look at this scene and frequently try to photograph it if the conditions are special. In the morning there is often haze here, and this creates an effect of atmospheric recession from the half dozen or so layers in the scene. It is a tricky thing – a bit too much haze and the details of forest and rock can become almost invisible; too little haze and the contrast between brightly lit highlights (like the patch of snow on Half Dome) and the deep shadows can become quite stark. The image I have in mind includes the effect of atmosphere-highlighted distance, the effect of back-lighting on the trees (most obvious here perhaps at the lower left), and the abstract nature of the different intersecting slopes and faces.
A technical note: I used the Canon 5D2 with the EF 100-400mm zoom at 365mm to make this photograph. Some doubt that a zoom like this can produce enough resolution, but at full size I can just barely make out a couple people on the snow bank atop Half Dome. Sharp enough for me!
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Black and white panoramic format photograph of a moving rock at Racetrack Playa, Death Valley National Park, California.
This photograph probably belongs in the “trying to turn lemons into lemonade” file. I’ve had wonderful luck with great light on all of my previous visits to the remote Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, the site of the “moving rocks” that have left tracks in their wake across the playa surface. However, my string luck seemed to run out on this late March visit. Earlier in the day as I contemplated whether or not to head out there I noticed some budding lenticular clouds to the north and made the decision to go. My preference is to have some clouds at the Racetrack, as perfectly clear sky isn’t as interesting in my view. Plus I always have in mind a particular previous visit when I photographed the playa at dawn with beautiful lenticulars building over the mountains to the north of the playa, and I think I’m always hoping for similar conditions again.
The plan on this visit was to arrive in the mid-afternoon to shoot the Grandstand, a formation near where the road first arrives at the playa, and to then photograph the beautiful evening light, the full moon (in the evening and then again before dawn) and finally the dawn light. The conditions continued to look great as I did the long washboard drive to the playa, and I arrived and photographed the Grandstand as planned. However, as I finished up here a high band of clouds moved across the sky and flattened out the light. As evening came on I was out on the playa, but the clouds remained and the light was not remarkable. I finally wandered back off the playa after dark, hoping that the clouds would clear and allow full moon photography. This never happened, and when I returned to the playa early in the morning the overcast was still present, with only a thin area of blue sky far to the west.
But I photographed anyway. Softer, overcast light has its potential, and since I was there I was certainly not going to waste the opportunity. In the end, I wasn’t thrilled with what I brought back for the most part, though I do like the effect of the overcast and the softer light on this black and white photograph of one of the more recognizable rocks. (By the way, the rest of my Death Valley visit went much better than this one night!)
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Earlier today I posted a photograph of an icon, Yosemite’s Half Dome. The idea of photographing such a thing evokes a variety of thoughts and concerns that I suspect many photographers understand: Is it too easy? Has it already been done? How will the shot stand in comparison to those that have already been done by greater and more famous photographers? Why bother?
It is interesting to see the variety of ways in which photographers respond to this issue. At one extreme are those who perhaps chase the icons, realizing that they are beautiful and compelling and that there sure as heck is a market for them. (Experiment: Take two of your best photographs from a famous location, one showing an icon and one showing something less familiar, and post them at Flickr… and see what happens. :-) At the other extreme are those who fall into the camp represented by a photographer who, when asked how to photograph icons more or less replied, “Don’t.”
I suppose I’m somewhere in the middle. Let’s use Yosemite Valley as an example since it is so familiar and since I frequently have the opportunity to travel there to do photography. I most certainly do not head straight for icons when I shoot there. In fact, when I photograph in the neighborhood of most of the icons you will frequently find my camera pointing the other direction. After visiting the Valley for decades, I think I’ve come to understand there is much more to this place than the post card shots.
However, icons are icons for a reason. Every so often I’m in the company of someone who is seeing the Valley for the first time, and through their reaction I am again reminded of the visual power of some of the icon scenes. (I wish I could experience what it must be like to emerge from Wawona Tunnel for the first time having never seen that stupendous view of the Valley before!) So I will shoot icons, but I suppose I at least think I’m more selective about how and when I’ll shoot them. I look for a different angle, a way to position the icon as a background element in a photograph of something less iconic, or perhaps unusual conditions.
It isn’t for me to say how successful I might be at this, but it seems that it is perhaps more of a challenge to find a way to shoot an icon in an interesting way than it is to shoot something that is less familiar.
So the photograph I posted earlier today fits into this category – you can’t get much more iconic than Half Dome! I’ve been trying to learn to understand this particular location – the variables of season and time of day and weather and technical issues about capturing the scene – and I now have a couple images in mind that I’d like to shoot here eventually when the time is right. This one gets close to one such shot I have in mind… but I’ll be back at this overlook many more times.
