Tag Archives: old

Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Bamboo Fence, New and Old

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Bamboo Fence, New and Old
A partially updated bamboo fence, Portland, Oregon

Bamboo Fence, New and Old. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A partially updated bamboo fence, Portland, Oregon

Seems like I still have one more photograph from our 2012 visit to the Japanese Gardens in Portland, Oregon. We were there on a family visit and I was traveling light when it came to photography, taking only a single camera and one lens. A bit to my surprise, it turned out that we had some good photographic opportunities, so I made the best of the minimal gear.

The garden of course features beautifully arranged and managed plant life, but it also includes a lot of structures, ranging from small buildings to bridges and fences and benches and more. The form of this fence attracted me — I do like geometry! But I was also intrigued by the juxtaposition of new and old sections of the fence, a reminder that such things are not static but rather in a state of continual change.

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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Juniper, Sandstone Cliff

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Juniper, Sandstone Cliff
An old juniper tree growing at the base of a sandstone cliff, Capitol Reef National Park.

Juniper, Sandstone Cliff. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An old juniper tree growing at the base of a sandstone cliff, Capitol Reef National Park.

As I recall it now, quite a few years later, this tree stands on a rise at the base of a large section of sandstone cliff in a place where a canyon makes a sharp bend. It is not a particularly remote or obscure spot, but the cliff is remarkable in terms of the late-day lighting and the patterns on the surface of the rock. The lighting was special — and challenging! — because the section of the canyon is aligned such that little direct light gets there. This means that much of the light is either from the very blue sky or reflected from very red cliffs, creating some almost otherworldly color effects.

My recollection is also that I found it a little complicated to get the compositions I was looking for here. I remember it as one of those places that is remarkable but which doesn’t necessarily present easy photographs. My archive of raw files supports this — I see a variety of different attempts at the subject, and each of them grappled with issues of juxtaposition and with objects that interfered with the composition. In fact, this version of the scene works because I found a different approach to cropping it that managed to eliminate one of this distractions.

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: Night

An Old Pier, Night

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An Old Pier, Night
Night photograph of the pilings of an old pier reflected in still water.

An Old Pier, Night. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Night photograph of the pilings of an old pier reflected in still water.

Photographed a few years ago at night in very dim lighting, these old pilings under a ship yard pier were reflected in the smooth water, made even smoother by the effects of a long exposure. You can tell that this structure has been here for some time.

The location is at an old ship yard in the San Francisco Bay, a place where naval ships were built and maintained for may decades — actually, since way back in the 1800s. The place was decommissioned in the 1990s and its character has changed since that time, though you can still find some remarkable historical structures if you poke around and get to know the place a bit.

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

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

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Weathered and cracked numbers painted on the wall of an old San Francisco hotel

50. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Weathered and cracked numbers painted on the wall of an old San Francisco hotel.

Photographs like this one have, at least for me, several purposes or rationales. To some extent, walking into a regular city environment and looking for little visual odds and ends is an important exercise in visual awareness. It is so easy to walk through such places and not pay a lot of attention, and when you do so while searching for images you see things that you’d otherwise miss. It is also interesting, I think, to “excerpt” small things from their larger context. (This bit of signage, is small enough that you might barely notice it if you took in the whole building at once.) With this one there is also a bit of that odd characteristic of some photographs, where their age — or the age of the subject — becomes somewhat interesting on its own.

So, what is it? It is a bit of a hand-painted street number sign on a very old (and somewhat iconic) building on a street in San Francisco that I often walk on these street photography visits. What else is it? It is color and form, abstracted to some extent from its original context. But not entirely abstracted, since if you look closely you might notice the extremely weathered and cracked paint and you might wonder about the history of this little bit of a sign, especially in an era when one-of-a-kind hand-painted signage is increasingly replaced by industrial signage.

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.