Tag Archives: lower

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Ding

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Ding
Ding

Ding. New York City. December 25, 2013. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A pedestrian walks past a New York City post office building.

An apology might be appropriate for this photograph, which might be the oddest Christmas Day photograph of 2013. We had arrived in New York City the previous evening, and when we woke up on Christmas morning in Manhattan things were relatively quiet. We had an afternoon engagement in Brooklyn, but plenty of morning time to kill before that, so we figured that we might just take a (rather cold) walk deeper into Lower Manhattan, and we ended up heading toward the World Trade Center site.

Because there were so few people – and so few cars – out this morning, certain photographic opportunities arose that might not usually be easy or even possible here. You can bet that on a more typical day this street would have been filled with vehicles and the sidewalk filled with other pedestrians. But on this quiet day it was much easier to photograph unobstructed views or to find an individual figure in this urban landscape. As this man in black strode purposefully (very purposefully for Christmas day!) past this post office building I saw that I might have a brief opportunity to frame him against the architecture of the building and as soon as I saw this particular shot, a little voice in my head said… “Ding!” (Sorry. But probably not sorry enough.)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Graffiti on the Roof

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Graffiti on the Roof
Graffiti on the Roof

Graffiti on the Roof. New York City. December 27, 2013. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Grafitti on urban roofs beyond cyclone fence near the Manhattan Bridge, New York City

This is another photograph from our “hiking day” in New York City during our December 2013 visit. It wasn’t quite our plan when the day started, but we ended up walking from our Canal Street Hotel down to the Brooklyn Bridge and across, then around the DUMBO area of Brooklyn, and back across the Manhattan Bridge to the city again. The two bridges are a study in contrasts. Brooklyn Bridge is, of course, a huge tourist destination and walking across it is almost a requirement for New York visitors and others. Even on this very cold – sub freezing – winter day there were thousands of people crossing. The Manhattan Bridge, on the other hand, is a rather lonely place for pedestrians. we had been warned that it is tremendously noisy, since above ground transit trains cross it only feet from the narrow pedestrian walkway.

Probably because it has not been spiffed up to be a tourist attraction, the Manhattan Bridge also has a lot more aesthetic rough edges. The bridge structure seems mostly to be utilitarian steel, trains run constantly and not far from the walkway, and especially at the Manhattan end the bridge passes above some neighborhoods that don’t appear to be exactly upper class. Looking down from the bridge I saw some of the most extensive graffiti I have seen… on the roofs of buildings, where it is only visible from the bridge and not at all from the streets below. Most of the time I make it a rule to not photograph graffiti, but here it was so extensive and so established that it seemed worth it to make a few photographs through the cyclone fence protecting the bridge walkway.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Trail Canyon

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Trail Canyon - Morning light angles across eroded ridges and gullies on lower slopes of the Panamint Range above Trail Canyon, Death Valley National Park.
Morning light angles across eroded ridges and gullies on lower slopes of the Panamint Range above Trail Canyon, Death Valley National Park.

Trail Canyon. Death Valley National Park. January 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light angles across eroded ridges and gullies on lower slopes of the Panamint Range above Trail Canyon, Death Valley National Park.

This is another photograph that I’ve been thinking about for a while, and one that I was virtually certain would be in black and white when I shot it. I’ve looked down into Trail Canyon quite a few times and tried to “see” a photograph that would somehow consist entirely of the overlapping ridges and layers of stratified rock, tilted at crazy and seemingly opposing angles. My previous photographs of this location had been made late in the day – when the light is beautiful in many directions from this overlook, but when the canyon itself is often shrouded in early shade.

I made this photograph in the morning. It was my first time at this location high in the Panamints at dawn instead of at sunset. I arrived on a cold winter morning before dawn to find no other people there and no wind. (The latter is a bit unusual here, but was certainly welcome, seeing that I would be shooting with long focal length lenses.) The first subject to shoot was the pre-dawn light on clouds high above the landscape. Then my attention moved to the first light striking various higher points within my range of view, and then followed the light as it worked its way down to lower elevations. After that I turned my attention more to guts of this canyon, but was not getting quite what I wanted at first – until the sun rose high enough to peak over ridges and begin to highlight the inner folds of the canyon as seen in this photograph. I made several different compositions, but in the end decided on this one that eliminates any extraneous elements outside of the canyon itself.

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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

First Light, Southern Death Valley

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First Light, Souithern Death Valley - As seen from Aguereberry Point, first dawn light spills across the lower end of Death Valley.
As seen from Aguereberry Point, first dawn light spills across the lower end of Death Valley.

First Light, Southern Death Valley. Death Valley National Park, California. January 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

As seen from Aguereberry Point, first dawn light spills across the lower end of Death Valley.

I have previously photographed from this location high in the Panamint Range and overlooking a vast portion of Death Valley National Park and its surroundings. The view stretches east to 11,000+’ peaks in Nevada and west to the crest of the Sierra Nevada, and great distances north and south to places and features that I cannot identify. My previous visits had all been late in the day, and I had often wondered what the location might be like at the start of the day. So, on this visit to Death Valley, a trip to Aguereberry Point before dawn was on my agenda.

As usual, I awoke well before dawn at my camp site back at Stovepipe Wells. (You can often tell if there are other photographers about – in the dark period an hour or more before sunrise you hear people quietly get up, quickly start their engines, and drive away.) I headed up into the Panamints and turned off at the start of the six-mile gravel road that goes to this point, and arrived just before the first colorful light began to light up the sky – and I was pleased to see that there were some interesting clouds. I have been fascinated by this view over the shoulder of a ridge dropping down toward the Valley above Trail Canyon, so I composed a photograph that juxtaposed this diagonal with the end of the Black Mountains across the valley and the light-filled atmosphere beyond where the very first sun was coming across lower Death Valley.

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.