Tag Archives: light

Interior, St Giles’ Cathedral

Interior, St Giles' Cathedral
“Interior, St Giles’ Cathedral” — Visitors walk through the interior of Edinburgh’s St. Giles’ Cathedral.

Our May 2024 visit to Scotland was centered around our weeklong Great Glen Way walk. But the majority of the trip was in more urban environments, ranging from smallScottish towns to London. Before leaving Scotland, we spent four days in Edinburgh. There is, of course, quite a lot to see there — from the “old” and “new” towns to our hike to Arthur’s Seat to the Holyrood Palace and more. St. Giles’ Cathedral is one of the most important and interesting sites in the Old Town.

We stayed in a mundane area that was perhaps a ten minute walk from Old Town, and our first walk there brought us almost immediately to St. Giles’ Cathedral, and it was one of our first stops. I’m no expert on Scottish history — far from it — but we quickly understood that this place is a center for quite a bit of it. Its history goes back many centuries, and during that time it has been used by Catholics, Protestants, royalty, and for other secular events. This continues today — there were concerts there and even a craft sale inside!


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.

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Lamp, Window, Morning Light

Lamp, Window, Morning Light
“Lamp, Window, Morning Light” A lamp on the ledge of a window in a Stirling, Scotland hotel.

This is an opportunistic photograph, made at a moment when photography is not typically my priority. We were staying in Stirling, Scotland for a few days after our Great Glen Way walk, and it turned out that breakfast was included with our room. So instead of heading out to hunt for coffee and breakfast, we just walked down that hallway, took the elevator down a floor, and walked into the dining room. And there on the window sill next to our table was this eye-catching lamp, posing against the window lit by morning light, with the blue sky beyond.

“So,” you may ask,” you say you weren’t thinking about photographing. But you had your camera with you? At breakfast?” Well, not exactly. This is an iPhone photograph. (I’ll bet that you didn’t realize that until now, right?) It turns out that sometimes the iPhone can be used to make things other than selfies. For the photographers out there, I did use the iPhone’s raw mode so that I’d have a bit more latitude in post — as you can imagine, the dynamic range in this scene was pretty large!


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.

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

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Church Doorway

“Church Doorway” — A side doorway to a churc at Oxford University.

We spent one of our London days to leaving the city for a day trip to Oxford. Having enough time in London, we had planned to take a train to some nearby location at some point, and Oxford seemed like good choice. (We were possibly swayed by the fact that our oldest son had been there the previous week for work and had shared hiis impressions of the university.) So we got off the train in the mid-morning time frame and walked up into the town of Oxford.

It was surprisingly crowded! I suppose this was partly because we were part of the small crowd of people who arrived on the train and headed the same direction. There was also a Pride event taking place, including a parade that temporarily blocked our way — a fine excuse to stop and grab a bite to eat nearby. Eventually we managed to wander through areas of Oxford University, though many are relatively inaccessible given that it is an actual working university. We stopped in a couple of churches and chapels, and I made this photograph of light coming through an open back door at one of them.


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.

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

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Portico, University of Glasgow

Portico, Univeristy of Glasgow
“Portico, University of Glasgow” — Among the stout columns and arches of a portico at the University of Glasgow.

This day started with a vague plan to visit the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and perhaps go look for some of the famous Glasgow Street Art nearby. Some times we have very clear plans and sometimes we just wing it. This was one of the latter times. We walked to the museum from downtown Glasgow, and after our visit there decided to check out the nearby campus of the University of Glasgow, where I made this photograph.

Once we got close enough to the university to see its impressive old buildings and tower — very “Harry Potter-esque” — we knew we had to get closer and take a look. After making a few photographs outside the buildings I noticed a doorway and figured we might as well walk in and see what happened. (Depending on local regulations this may or may not be OK.) We entered and were soon in a large interior square, surrounding by the impressive buildings. These arches and columns supported a central wing separating two portions of the central open areas.


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 | PostEmail

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

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