Tag Archives: monochrome

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Winter Morning, Sacramento Valley

January 11, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Winter clouds and morning fog, Sacramento Valley, California

I’ve been driving through California’s Great Central Valley (composed of the northern Sacramento Valley and the southern San Joaquin Valley) for decades, on my way too and from the Sierra and on travels north toward the Pacific Northwest and south toward Southern California. I confess that for many years it was just a place to pass thought on the way to someplace else, though years ago I began to develop an affinity for the sensations that came from driving across on a hot summer evening on the return from the Sierra or from slowing down for the winter fogs on the way to/from ski trips. And then I became away of the winter migratory birds, almost by accident, and I started regarding the winter valley as a destination rather than a route, and I have gradually come to appreciate the place itself.

This has also been (yet another) opportunity for me to relearn an important photography lesson, namely that it isn’t so much about going to distant exotic places (though I’ll do that, too, when I can) as it is about slowing down and paying attention to what there is to see wherever your are. And once I did that, this place that was little more than “the place I drove through” has become the subject. This photograph came on a short trip that I made with the goal of pushing out the boundaries of my experience in the Valley a bit. This time I headed further north up the Sacramento Valley to visit some areas that, frankly, I didn’t know existed until I started researching a bit. This area shares a lot with the more familiar locations where I photograph birds and landscapes every winter — the birds, the immense sky, the flat landscape, water everywhere — but it turns out to have its own personality, too. The birds are similar but not identical. (I photographed bald eagles here for the first time in California.) I saw snow-covered hills to my west in the dawn light. A small and isolated group of mountains rose to the east. And there was water everywhere, far more than where I photograph further south, and a surprise to anyone who has ever visited this area during get hot, dry summer months.

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

8 AV and Jane St

January 6, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A winter evening at the corner of 8th Avenue and Jane Street, Manhattan

Continuing my photographic bipolar swings between the natural world and the human world, here is another street photograph. It ties in with a couple of things that I’ve been thinking about recently in my street photography. First, it is an example of night street photography, shot handheld in near darkness using a small camera and high ISO. A year and a half ago I suddenly realized that this kind of photography had become a realistic possibility with the newer high ISO cameras. As a person who has long done long-exposure night photography from the tripod, this was truly a revelation. Secondly, I’m crazy about photographing lighted buildings, stores, restaurants and the light that spills from them onto the sidewalk, street, and anyone who happens to be passing by.

Aside from the general way that I’m always on the lookout for such things, this photograph was almost an accident. We had spent the afternoon at the new Whitney Museum. Those who know me have come to understand my predilection for spending way too much time going way too slowly through museums, and those people eventually give up and move on to other things, leaving me to continue ambling past the art. On this visit some of the people I was with had more or less “done” the Whitney in about and hour and a half — at which point I had more or less finished one floor of the place! We decided that they would all go ahead and find a place to eat and drink, and they ended up at a little tavern across the street from this photograph. I showed up hours later and joined them for food and beer, and we finally left the place after dark. As soon as I walked outside I saw this building across the street.

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Man in White, Mosco Street

December 28, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Christmas Eve in New York City.Earlier in the day we had wandered around in midtown, making photographs in cloudy and occasionally drizzly conditions. Eventually we made it up to near Central Park to join our younger son and his future wife at a place where he proposed to her earlier this year. Then we wandered down along the park and across to join the mob scene on Fifth Avenue until the crowds become overwhelming.

Time for dinner, so we head to Chinatown, where there is a restaurant at which we’ve eaten with our sons on a few previous Christmas visits. It is supposed to be — and it was — a place that is good but not necessarily widely known. We arrive and find that the wait is “at least an hour and a half.” As someone later said, “The cat is out of the bag.” We quickly figure out that most of the other nearby restaurants are nearly as crowded, so we decide to walk a few blocks to a Vietnamese place. As we walk down Mosco Street a cook takes a break on the sidewalk, lit by the light spilling out of the door to the kitchen.

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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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Photographers

Photographer, Wetlands

December 20, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Water reflects clouds above photographer David Hoffman as he works from a levee in San Joaquin Valley wetlands.

Passing through California’s Great Central Valley by car, you could be forgiven for thinking that there isn’t much there besides fast food, gas stations, freeway, and other stuff alongside the road. Get off the freeway, get out of the car, and slow down a bit, especially during the colder half of the year, and you may find a very different place. This little post is not the place to share the whole story, but for me the place is partly defined by its agricultural roots, partly by the sense that it is located between the coast ranges and the great Sierra Nevada, and partly by the sense I often get there of space and immense sky.

We had spent the morning photographing migratory birds and the somewhat hazy landscape. We broke for lunch in a nearby town and then returned for more photography in the mid afternoon. While we were at lunch the conditions changed — the light fog dissipated and high clouds from a Pacific weather front drifted across the sky. As we headed out toward a spot where we hoped to find birds for evening photography we paused along the levee and photographed the sky, its reflection in the wetlands pond, and the spare winter landscape. My friend and photographer David Hoffman is photographing the same pond from the far bank.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: monochrome

Winter Morning, Sacramento Valley

8 AV and Jane St

Man in White, Mosco Street

Photographer, Wetlands

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