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.
This photograph was made on a warm summer evening last summer in Paris, on the day that we arrived by train from London. I’m almost embarrassed to say that this was our first ever visit to Paris — it is a long story — but I’m also very happy that we did get there, spending a beautiful week in the city. As first-time Paris visitors, we had little idea what we were doing, an issue perhaps compounded by the fact that I generally don’t like to do too much research about a place before arriving. Oh, and we don’t speak French. All of that aside, we made it from the train station to our hotel, and set out on foot in the early evening to try to get our bearings.
We had virtually no idea where we were going. We understood that we were in Montmartre, which we had selected at least in part because our son and daughter-in-law had stayed in the area recently. I won’t recount the entire story of our random wanderings through areas that we began to understand a bit better by the end of our visit, though in another post I may share the tale of our “discovery” of a rather well-known place. In any case, we were hungry, and it didn’t take us too long — though longer that it took on the following evenings — to figure out that finding a place is not a problem in Paris. In fact, we ate at this place…
Two decades after agreements between Utah and federal government to protect this national monument for all Americans in perpetuity, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is under threat from an administration that wants us to overlook its precious qualities and forget the hard-fought agreements (many of which benefit Utah) that let to its creation.
Some will tell you that places like Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument are “empty” lands, and I can understand why a person might assume so — perhaps a first-time visitor or possibly a person who has never been there and is skeptical about what others say about the place.
I came to the red rock country rather late myself. I had decades in “my Sierra” under my belt, and it was hard to see how this Utah landscape could compare to the rocky heights,meadows, and forests I knew, especially since my only experience with Utah had come when I was very young and my family drove across the state past the Great Salt Lake on the way to someplace else.
Canyon Reflections
But friends insisted, “You have to go to Utah!” Eventually I went, hitting the big national parks, justifiably famous for deep canyons, red rock pinnacles, domes, and more. I even passed through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, driving through the town of Escalante — I don’t recall stopping — on my way to one of those other places, unaware of and uninterested in what might be in the “empty” place outside the town.
Dry, cracked mud on top of red sand under reflected canyon light, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
Although I missed many things, at least I knew that I wanted to come back to Southern Utah.
Not long afterwards, a photographer friend suggested we go there in the fall and explore some places that he and his friends know. He has photographed here for decades, so I welcomed the chance to learn about places off the beaten track. We started in one of those big national parks, but then we headed to Kanab, and from there we decided to explore a few less known locations.
A box elder tree stands against the vertical sandstone walls of a Utah slot canyon
One morning we headed up a road into Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. There was the camaraderie of being on the road with friends, along with the expectation that I would “discover” interesting things. However, as we headed up this gravel track, I found the visual impact of the scene was, to be honest, less than stunning. It seemed like, dare I admit it, an “empty” landscape — dry, relatively flat, no rocky peaks, and on that day a boring sky.
Miles up the road we pulled out and parked along a short nondescript spur, dusty and surrounded by brush. (Stopping at nondescript places would eventually become something to look forward to in this country!) I couldn’t see a thing that suggested a photograph, but we loaded up and dropped down a hill to a small creek. This was to be, finally, my first real introduction to canyon country.
Striped Rock, Grass, and Sand
I’m in my element in the Sierra, where most everything is, by now, second nature. I was distinctly not in my element here, and almost everything was new. We followed the shallow stream, sometimes walking on soft and wet sand, at times crossing drier ground between meanders and passing beneath cottonwoods, and often just wading straight up the creek. Rock walls began to rise on either side of the creek, and before long we were in a fairly narrow canyon. In places brush grew from cracks in the red rock, lit by reflected light bouncing down the canyon walls from above. The gentle sound of the creek was a constant accompaniment. I began to notice small things — some reflecting mud, a riffle reflecting light from canyon walls and sky, a few leaves lying on red rock, grass bent by passing water, reddish sand, rock strata offset by a crack, the texture of wet sand — and each one warranted a pause to photograph.
Not all places worth protecting qualify on the basis of monumental, stupendous features. Saving those is easy, since anyone can see they are spectacular. (OK, almost anyone.) But just because a landscape like that of Grand Staircase-Escalante reveals itself gradually and more quietly and over a longer period of time, it and the “empty space” it occupies are no less precious. In fact, because this beauty is more fragile and less obvious, I would argue that it may be even more precious.
A man sits at a table at an outdoor restaurant at night, Florence, Italy
Photographing in the streets of Florence, Italy was a joy when we visited this past summer. My only regret is that we were there for such a short time. We spent a week in the hills between Florence and Siena, and we picked up our rental car in Florence before leaving for the hills. (And, yes, driving in Florence is just as much fun as you have heard.) Then we returned to Florence and had parts of three days there before leaving. As I know fully understand, three days was not nearly enough time!
In one way, the streets of Florence seem to have a more uniform look than many American cities. There are few obvious commercial signs and many buildings are roughly the same shade of brown. But the streets are often very narrow and they twist and turn in all kinds of interesting ways, occasionally opening up to large squares or the banks of the Arno River. At night things are even more magical. One moment you might find yourself in the midst of crowds of people, and in another you might be on a deserted side street. This small street, with its beautiful lighting, extended off of one of the large squares, a somewhat busy place, but here there was just one man sitting at this sidewalk cafe.
