Tag Archives: monochrome

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Oaks, Trail, Spring

March 15, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Old oak trees along a Northern California trail through spring grasslands

When people think of the landscape of California, many think of impressive and famous subjects: the redwoods, the Pacific Ocean coast, the High Sierra, perhaps the deserts. But those of us who live here know that one of the most characteristics is that of the oak grasslands. The sprawl along the low hills found all over the state and manage to climb up into mountains in many places — on both sides of the Central Valley, along the coastal hills, and more.

This tree and I go back perhaps twenty years, to when I first “discovered” this park just south of the main population centers of the San Francisco Bay Area. The specific location isn’t really important to anyone else, since you can find similar landscapes in many other places. But this tree is special to me. It sits along a trail that I have hiked many times, a steep but short one that takes me to the top of a bare hill and then down into a valley from which more distant trails branch out. I’ve photographed this sprawling oak throughout the year — summer, fall, winter and spring, in rain and fog and heat. This time I photographed on a late-winter California day that, as they sometimes do, felt more like spring.

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Summer Evening, Little Italy

March 12, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

People crowd the streets of Little Italy on a warm summer evening in Manhattan

For some reason, I too often find myself in New York in the middle of August. Not that I dislike New York — actually I love the place, for wandering, for photography, for museums, for food, for many things. It has been almost six months since I was last there and I already feel like I’m overdue for a visit. The issue is with August. As my sons, who live there, have told me, August is perhaps the least comfortable time to visit. it tends to be hot and muggy, and this is why many New Yorkers pick this time to be somewhere else.

But even though I know this I have probably made half of my New York visits during this month. It has become almost a standing joke in our household. On this 2014 August day we had been in Chinatown looking for food, and afterwards we walked up and into Little Italy, where on summer evenings like this one the streets are filled with people, looking for espresso and gelato.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Light on Granite Slabs

March 8, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

First light reflects on smooth granite slabs, Yosemite Valley

These smooth slabs of granite are at the base of Glacier Point, wrapping around it and roughly following the contours of the Merced River’s path as it rises toward Vernal and Nevada Falls and the High Sierra far beyond. I love large expanses of smooth granite, but the curving quality of this stretch is special and different from most other cliff faces in the Valley.

I had looked at this face the previous morning but did not photograph it, so on this second morning I headed straight out to a spot where I thought I might get a clear view as the first light come over higher ridges to the east and flowed across the granite. We can regard this as an interpretation of the scene, as the granite is perhaps not this dark — but brilliant sunlight reflections, enhanced by snow patches and melting water, made portions of the scene incredibly bright.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Building In Muted Light

February 20, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cloud-muted light on an urban building near SFMOMA

This building is becoming something of a theme for me, and I often end up treating it in black and white. I made the photograph from one of the outdoor terraces high on the side of the new section of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), from which there are interesting and varied views of the surrounding downtown San Francisco neighborhood. This building is perhaps the closest to the museum, and its form and the texture of its surface are interesting.

I originally thought that it would be a color photograph. The soft light played in interesting ways on the subtle colors of the stone and the pastel color of the windows. But the more I worked on it the more something persuaded me to let go of that nod to realism and instead go with a rather highly processed monochrome interpretation. There is a school of architecture photography that makes heavy use of techniques that darken areas of the image and then compensate by selective lightening. This is often complemented by some techniques involving blur — a sort of masking effect. I used these and more, including some heavy dodging and burning to get this photograph to what you see here — perhaps for no more reason than that I wanted to explore some of these techniques.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: monochrome

Oaks, Trail, Spring

Summer Evening, Little Italy

Light on Granite Slabs

Building In Muted Light

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