Tag Archives: narrow

Photographs: Austria, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Salzburg Sisters

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Salzburg Sisters
“Salzburg Sisters ” — Two women walking down a cobbled Salzburg street.

There’s a part of me that is tempted to jump over the large number of travel and street photography images that I’m coming across as I traverse my old raw file archive… and move to some of the more familiar scenes from the natural world. But I’m going to continue to (mostly) resist that temptation and double down on these subject a bit longer, at least until I make it through this archive of images from a multi-week European trip back in 2013.

We stayed in Bavaria with family for about a week, just across the border from Salzburg, which we visited on several occasions during our stay. I love narrow streets and figures that quickly appear and disappear, challenging my ability to quickly see and create a photograph. As these women walked ahead of us I had just enough time to bring the camera up to my eye and make three quick exposures as they headed into a very narrow cobbled street.

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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

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

LIne of Weakness

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LIne of Weakness
Three plants find sustenance in a narrow crack in Utah sandstone.

LIne of Weakness. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Three plants find sustenance in a narrow crack in Utah sandstone.

This small scene was in the bottom of a Southern Utah canyon, where the light was richly saturated as it reflected among red rock walls on its way to the canyon floor. This light virtually glows, and it can be quite soft, filling in shadows and saturating colors. In these places and in this light, even the most mundane subject can begin to be appealing.

I’m always fascinated by plants that manage to establish themselves in unlikely spots with minimal chance for success… and then manage to sustain themselves there for years, decades, or even centuries. I first became attracted to such things in the Sierra Nevada, where full grown trees sometimes seem to grow in nearly solid rock. These plants are smaller, but it is quite amazing that such a small crack creates an environment in which they can thrive.

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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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

Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Street, Buildings, Shadows

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Street, Buildings, Shadows
Afternoon shadows fall across buildings and a narrow street in Tuscany

Street, Buildings, Shadows. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Afternoon shadows fall across buildings and a narrow street in Tuscany.

This photograph is the second half of a pair similar photographs I made during this visit to a vineyard in Tuscany a few years back. The location (Castello de Ama) features a small central area of stone buildings, amounting to a very small village, surrounded by vineyards. As you can guess, that it was pretty much “typical Tuscany,” which is a very good thing.

Arriving towards the middle of the day, the light was intense during our entire visit, aside from a very few passing clouds. To this Californian there is something both familiar and different about Tuscan light. The intensity is similar, especially at midday during the summer, and stark contrasts between light and shadow are common. But the Italian light seems to me to be softer, or perhaps more accurately the atmosphere seems softer, perhaps as a result of humidity. This photograph and the one I posted earlier both feature stone buildings, a bit of a narrow street, and dark midday shadows.

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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Building And Shadow, Tuscany

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Building And Shadow, Tuscany
A cloud drifts in the sky above stone buildings in Tuscany

Building And Shadow, Tuscany. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A cloud drifts in the sky above stone buildings in Tuscany

If you follow my posts you may have noticed quite a few post from Italy recently, and you might be wondering why. Have you been to Italy? ;-) OK, there are more objective reasons I can share. I make a habit of reviewing older work a year or more after I make the photographs. I see the images differently with a bit more subjective distance from the actual experience. There’s another reason, too, and it ties the place I live (California) to Italy it ways that have only recently made more sense to me. This spring and summer as I’ve walked trails in California’s grass and oak lands on warm days, it has hit me just how similar the experiences can be. And a visit to an area winery on such a day reinforced that feeling. So I suppose I’ve been enjoying both the pleasant memories of the 2016 visit from which this photograph comes and the realization that I live in a place that shares some Italy’s pleasant features.

This is one of a pair of related photographs I made at an Italian vineyard and winery we visited — both focus on the stone buildings and midday shadows. (The related image will show up here in a later post.) The vineyard centers on a very old hamlet consisting of stone buildings surrounded by vineyard. We were there in the middle of the day, and the unique Italian light was wonderful. I’m not quite sure how to describe it in words, but it has some remarkable combination of the intensity of southern light along with the softness of the Italian atmosphere.

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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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