Tag Archives: narrow

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

Summer Evening, Florence

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Summer Evening, Florence
People out on a summer evening in the narrow streets of Florence, Italy

Summer Evening, Florence © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People out on a summer evening in the narrow streets of Florence, Italy.

For some reason I seem to be in a “black and white” frame of mind this week. Part of this is attributable, no doubt, to ongoing work preparing prints for an exhibit opening next week at Stellar Gallery in Oakhurst, California (“Arms Wide Open: Black and White Photography”). I also recently wandered back into an archive of photographs from a visit to Italy a few years ago, and again took up a thread that included night photographs made in Florence.

So here you have a black and white night photograph from that Florence, made while walking about on a warm summer evening in that town. After spending a week in the Chianti region we ended up in Florence for a few days before flying home, and we spent the time walking the narrow streets of this town, from early morning until late at night. Here a small eatery extends into the narrow street and pedestrians wander along the narrow, curved walkway.

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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Photographs: Netherlands, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Rainy Evening, Amsterdam

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Rainy Evening, Amsterdam
Pedestrians walk along a narrow Amsterdam brick street on a rainy evening

Rainy Evening, Amsterdam. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Pedestrians walk along a narrow Amsterdam brick street on a rainy evening

This was our first day in Amsterdam, on our first visit to this city. We arrived by train from London, got there in the afternoon, went to our hotel to get settled in, and then it was time to begin our explorations and to get something to eat. Our hotel was just outside of the very busy central area of Amsterdam, so we had to walk a few blocks first before we entered the familiar narrow and curving streets… and for the first time saw the busy crowds, scores of bicycles, and more.

It was a slightly wet evening — no hard rain, but enough to dampen the pavement and create reflections. The darkened, cloudy skies and the late hour limited the light, which always has the nice effect of making illuminated signs a bit more visible, but without blowing them out as can happen at night. Our first impression on entering this area was that we could just walk up the center of the street. That turned out to be sort of true, but there’s more to it than that in Amsterdam. Lots of different types of traffic share these streets — the ubiquitous bicycles, pedestrians, occasional scooters and cars — and it turns out that there are some rules and expectations about who goes where. If you haven’t been there before, I’ll just say, “Watch out for bicycles!”

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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Sandstone and Canyon Mud

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Sandstone and Canyon Mud
Cracked mud at the bottom of a narrow Utah sandstone slot canyon

Sandstone and Canyon Mud. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Cracked mud at the bottom of a narrow Utah sandstone slot canyon

For various reasons I found myself looking back into my archives of older photographs this week. In one case someone asked about a particular subject and I thought that I could find the answer in the form of a photograph. In another I wanted to use an older image to illustrate a point. Sometimes when I go back to the old raw image files one thing leads to another and I’m off on an exploration of forgotten work. And, quite often, as I do this I “rediscover” photographs that I had originally left behind for one reason or another.

This week’s dive into the past took me back about four years to a wonderful trip to the Southwest. I had several weeks to wander. I started in the Kanab area, worked my way up to Capitol Reef to meet a photographer friend, then joined with a group of photographer/friends to spend several days camping and photographing in a remote area. I emerged from that backcountry trip to spend a night in a wonderful lodge in Boulder — what a shock that was! — and then headed west to join my family in the Zion area. I made this photograph early on the trip. I decided to explore a new area which I knew to hold some well-known features. I drove into the area, found a place to park at a likely looking trailhead, shouldered my pack and headed into a large wash, eventually entering a section of beautiful slot canyon terrain, with much from recent rains still covering parts of the canyon floor.

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.

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

Photographs: Germany, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Doorway, Heidelberg

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Doorway, Heidelberg
A graffiti-covered doorway on a narrow Heidelberg street

Doorway, Heidelberg. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A graffiti-covered doorway on a narrow Heidelberg street

To the extent that a photograph can be “about” things — I tend to think that a photograph “is” a thing — this one is perhaps about my obsession with geometries, about light, and about the door, with its graffiti, and what that might tell us about the door and how people here treat this “street art.” And by “about” I don’t necessarily mean that it tells us about these things — more that it may be about questions raised by such things.

The doorway is on a back street in the old part of Heidelberg, where we wandered on an August day earlier this year. These colors and this sort of paint and decoration seem fairly characteristic of this area. As we walked, the left side of the street was in shadow and the right was struck obliquely by sunlight that was somewhat softened by hazy cloudiness. Without that filtering the light would likely have been almost to stark for the photograph. Here I notice, as I did with an earlier photograph from Amsterdam, that there seem to be some “rules” constraining the application of the graffiti. It is on the door but not, for the most part, on the walls. Oddly, it all seems to be in black or other very dark colors. (I actually wonder if it was created by the people who live/work in this building.)

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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” 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.