Tag Archives: manhattan

Winter Trees, Statue, Central Park

Winter Trees, Statue, Central Park
Winter Trees, Statue, Central Park

Winter Trees, Statue, Central Park. New York City. December 28, 2013. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Barren winter trees and statue in Central Park, New York City

At the end of 2013 we spent a week in New York City, devoting our time to a combination of family visits and exploring the city and surroundings. We staying in Manhattan and did a lot of walking and subway riding there, but we also got up to the north as far as The Cloisters museum and also spent quite a bit of time in Brooklyn.

We managed to miss the worst of the tough winter weather in New York. We had some rain on one day, and there was the tiniest flurry of snow on another near the end of the trip. For Californians from the San Francisco Bay Area, it seemed cold, but not nearly like it would be starting a few days after we left, when cold conditions and very heavy snow arrived. All of this was great for us since we wanted to walk and photograph a lot. On one day we decided to wander around in Central Park. It was a beautiful winter day, with mostly blue skies and clear air. The park was crowded with plenty of other people who were taking advantage of the opportunity to get out. As we wandered around I carried my small rangefinder-style camera and mostly shot quickly and spontaneously, focusing on whatever happened to catch my attention—a group of trees, tall building surrounding the park, people, and so on. Here I tried to fill the frame with the stark, twisted forms of these barren winter trees against the clear sky… with a small surprise in the lower left corner.

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.

Winter Morning, Rising Steam

Winter Morning, Rising Steam
Winter Morning, Rising Steam

Winter Morning, Rising Steam. New York City. December 31, 2013. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Clouds of steam rise into the winter morning sky above Manhattan

It must have been a slow week in Manhattan. When we arrived at our Canal Street hotel on Christmas Eve day, they upgraded us to a better room and put us something like 20 floors up, in a room with huge windows with a view to the east over lower Manhattan. A week later, on the final morning of our visit, we were enjoying this view one last time before checking out and starting the process of heading back to the west coast. (First a few hours in Brooklyn, then a trip to JFK, then a long flight…) It was a cold early morning, not too long after sunrise, and there was a high shield of thin cloud to the east. The sun was coming in under these clouds at a low angle and back-lighting the rising columns of steam all over the city, so we made a few final Manhattan photographs through the window before heading out.

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.

Illuminated Wall Panel

Woven wall panel photograph
“Illuminated Wall Panel” — The patterns of an illuminated and woven wall in a New York City Chinese restaurant

We had arrived in New York earlier this afternoon, taking the subway in to Manhattan from Kennedy to get to our hotel on Canal Street. The plan was to get settled there — where we would stay for the next week — and then meet up with family and friends and walk to the Chinatown district for dinner. Christmas Eve, New York City, meeting friends and family, Chinese food – what could be better?

We found the restaurant and some of our party were already there. In a city like New York I almost always carry a camera and, yes, I took one to dinner with me. Most of the photographs are of people in our group – and I won’t likely post those here. But as we sat down, across the table was a very interesting wall — wide panels of some material that looked like very thin wood were woven together and lit from behind. I thought that the pattern might make an interesting photograph, so I made a single exposure… and went back to paying attention to the party!


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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. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Person, Stairs, Wall, Windows

Person, Stairs, Wall, Windows
Person, Stairs, Wall, Windows

Person, Stairs, Wall, Windows. New York City. December 29, 2013. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A person ascends stairs inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

On this day, halfway through our late-December week in New York City, we finally had some bad weather. Not as bad as the snowstorms that shut down the city a week or so later, but enough cold rain that walking around Manhattan was starting to seem a lot less appealing than it had been the day before. We decided that the weather would make it a good day for indoor activities, so we got on the subway and headed up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art… where we joined what seemed like about half of New York City in using the Museum as a rainy day activity!

If you have been there, you know that this museum is huge – far too big to see the whole thing in a day. We’ve gone a number of times, each time poking into new areas that we had not seen before and visiting a few familiar areas. This time we visited some galleries displaying photography and finally ended up way in the back of the facility in a section of newer architecture. This seemed like an odd spot to me. What here looks like the exterior windows of a building, with a sidewalk in front, is actually inside the museum. If I recall correctly, it is in an area where new and old architecture meet.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | FacebookGoogle+ | 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.