Tag Archives: millennium

Photographs: Chicago, Photographs: Urban/Street

Cloud Gate

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Cloud Gate
Cloud Gate

Cloud Gate. Chicago, Illinois. August 2, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Chicago’s Cloud Gate reflecting the city skyline

The Cloud Gate sculpture is one of the iconic sights of downtown Chicago, visited by many people and photographed by almost all of them! It stands in an accessible and central section of the lakeside Millennium Park, just across the street from central downtown areas. We wandered past twice on two different days as we walked around this area during our visit. (There are other fascinating public art installations in the surrounding area, too.)

The sculpture is impressive in photographs, but I did not realize how large it is in person. It is remarkable in a number of ways, not the least of which is the effect it has had on the public consciousness. In a purely objective sense, the existence of such a huge, unbroken and curving reflective surface is a marvel. And it is also, to be plain, a lot of fun — it is hard to imagine how anyone could resist playing around with the distorted reflections it produces. Having seen so many photographs of the thing I first resisted the temptation to shoot it, instead just looking. Then I thought that it might be interesting to photograph the ways that people interact with the sculpture, so I took the camera out and started shooting.

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: England, Photographs: Night

River Thames Reflections, Night

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River Thames Reflections, Night
River Thames Reflections, Night

River Thames Reflections, Night. London, England. July 6, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Nighttime lights from the Southwark Bridge reflect on the surface of London’s River Thames.

As we walked back across the Millennium Bridge toward the north bank of the River Thames in the evening light, I saw many colorful lights on bridges, boats, and buildings that were reflected in the surface of the river and which stood out against the somewhat hazy blue hour atmosphere. This bridge provides a great location for photographing the reflections since it is, obviously, right above the water and because it is easy to align reflections with various other elements by moving back and forth across the bridge. In this photograph most of the interesting reflections are coming from the Southwark Bridge, with the white lights on the Tower Bridge just visible further along the river.

On a technical note, I relied on a very different sort of photographic gear on this trip. Since our plan was to keep our luggage down to carry-on size – for a three-week trip to three countries – we decided to take some radical steps to downsize the amount of camera equipment we would carry. I normally shoot a full frame DSLR and typically carry a very large tripod and multiple (sometimes many!) large lenses. My normal load of camera gear alone, at least for car-based shooting, would exceed the carry-limits that we would deal with on our international flights – and would also weigh me down more than I wanted during a trip that would include a lot of walking. So for this trip I left my Big Gear at home and instead carried a Fujifilm X-E!, a small cropped sensor mirrorless camera, and only three lenses: a 14mm prime, a 35mm prime, and a 55-200mm zoom. All of this fit in a small messenger bag with room left over for my (small) laptop and lots of other necessities. I bring this up because this photograph was shot handheld with this camera, using the 35mm prime – in a situation and of a subject where I would normally assume that a tripod was necessary. (I’ll be writing more about the experience with this alternate gear soon at my blog.)

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 | 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.