Tag Archives: manley

Saint Ansel of the Donut Shop

March 29, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sunlit donut shop interior with semi-concealed photograph

This photograph comes from a memorable little photo excursion… that started at my front door. Some years ago (wow, has it been five years!?) I decided on Christmas Eve day to go out for a walk with my camera. It was an afternoon of interesting light, and it seemed like something to do. As I walked through the familiar neighborhood several things surprised me. As I recall, the long winter shadows of trees were appearing on buildings everywhere I looked and they became a subject. And I also saw things in this neighborhood that I thought I knew so well — I’ve lived here for decades — that I simply had not noticed before.

There is something about having a camera in hand that changes the way I see. Usually it is all too easy to see “casually” without really considering or even really noticing what is right there. For example, I distinctly noticing for the first time the fronts of the upper stories of buildings in the small downtown business area. I had no doubt walked that street hundreds of times before without paying any conscious attention to them. As I walked past this little donut shop, beautiful late-afternoon light flooded its interior. Again, though I had been inside many times (yum! donuts!) this was the first time that I noticed the old Ansel Adams reproduction on the wall. (There is an earlier version of this photograph in black and white.)

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.

Locations

Photographing Death Valley – Part 1

January 20, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 17 Comments

This material concerning Death Valley is unavailable while revisions are underway. Thanks for your understanding. In the meantime, I will respond to comments left on this page.

(Update 3/22/13: The planned update to this article has been long-delayed, and for that I apologize. It turns out that the way I want to approach the subject in the revised version is a bit more complicated than I expected. I had anticipated completing an update in early 2013, but I decided to wait until after this year’s shoot in Death Valley so that I would write with that experience fresh in my mind.)

Also, more (but not all!) of my Death Valley photography is found here: https://gdanmitchell.com/gallery/v/NaturalWorld/TheLandscape/Desert/DeathValley/

(Note: After a conversation with a friend who is a retired Yosemite ranger, in which he articulately explained why he has concerns about sharing overly specific information about sensitive and fragile places too widely, I have decided to revise this article about photographing Death Valley. The goal is to remove some of the unnecessarily specific details about places that don’t need a lot more publicity, and to let photographers who are new this wonderful park learn about it the way I did and continue to do – by slowly exploring and adding to my knowledge and experience of the place rather than looking for a quick list of the “great shots.” I hope you’ll understand.

Photographs: Urban/Street

Donut Shop, Christmas Eve

January 3, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Black and white photograph of the interior of a donut shop late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve.

As in many photographs like this, I hope that there may be more to it than meets the eye. I won’t tell the whole story, but here is a bit of background. I had been involved in an online discussion of the merits of shooting “old school” street photography using primes, and specifically limiting oneself to a 50mm prime on a 35mm film camera. Though it isn’t the point of my post here, I’ll just say that I’m skeptical about the value of that sort of limitation given a whole bunch of boring photographic philosophy. In any case, as an outgrowth of that discussion I thought it would be fun to head out on foot armed only with my full-frame camera (sorry, no film camera at all these days!) and a 50mm prime and just see what I could come up with. So, I walked out my front door and did some photography.

It was late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, so few businesses were still open, and it was late enough in the day that the last-minute shopping traffic was diminishing and things were becoming rather quiet. Few people were even out walking. I mostly walked but I also photographed some shop windows and buildings and so forth, and when I passed this tiny donut shop I first did an exterior shot of the closed business that included a weathered wooden and brick wall and some sad-looking holiday lights. Then as I passed the front of the shop I decided to put my nose against the window and peer inside. The low light from the late-afternoon sun was directly behind me and casting some very harsh and flat light into the interior, but I was intrigued by the arrangement and shapes of the tables and chairs, the shadow cast by the Christmas ornaments hanging in the window, and by the odd juxtaposition of a poster of the work of a certain photographer that is barely visible on the wall.

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.

keywords: donut, doughnut, shop, manley, christmas, eve, day, afternoon, light, closed, interior, shop, door, window, wall, outlet, no smoking, sign ansel, adams, mural, project, shadow, ornaments, table, chair, wood, panel, obscure, glass, handle, lock, reflection, street, urban, stock, black and white, monochrome

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert

Morning, Manley Beacon

April 29, 2009 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The iconic view of the morning sun striking Manley Beacon at Zabriskie Point with the Panamint Range in the distance – Death Valley National Park, California.

Yeah, it’s an icon… :-)

But I don’t think I’ve posted any photographs of similar landscape icons recently, so what the heck.

I shot this on the final morning of my early April, 2009 trip to Death Valley. I really didn’t go there to shoot this icon precisely – I originally thought that there might be some interesting clouds that morning (there weren’t) and my main goal was shooting detail photographs of the eroded landscape below and to the left of the camera position – actually more than 90 degrees to the left. But if you are at Zabriskie, there is a moment when the sun light finally makes its way across the valley and suddenly washes across Manley Beacon that is hard to resist – you’d have to be a stronger photographer than I am to not swing your camera in that direction.

In the end it is a pretty “vanilla” photograph of Manley Beacon – pretty much straight ahead lighting, no dramatic clouds in the sky, and I did not crank the contrast or saturation as you often see in photographs of this mountain. This is really pretty much what it looks like.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: manley, beacon, zabriskie, point, icon, mountain, hill, ridge, sunrise, dawn, morning, distance, death valley, national park, california, usa, scenic, travel, landscape, shadow, light, folds, eroded, gully, color, wash, stock

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: manley

Saint Ansel of the Donut Shop

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Photographing Death Valley – Part 1

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Donut Shop, Christmas Eve

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Morning, Manley Beacon

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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.

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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.