Tag Archives: park

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Tree, Winter Light

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Tree, Winter Light
A bare winter tree and clearing tule fog.

Tree, Winter Light. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A bare winter tree and clearing tule fog.

On Sunday there was ground fog all over the San Francisco Bay Area, and I had a few free hours, so I headed out to see what I could find. I went to a place that is very familiar to me, a local haunt where I have hiked and photographed for decades. I had not been there in perhaps a year, so it was good to reestablish my relationship with the location and note a few changes. The little trip also reminded me that it isn’t necessary to travel long distances to find photographic subjects — quite often a closer look at nearby places will reveal worthy subjects.

The idea here was to arrive before the fog cleared, photograph in the thick fog for a while, and then be ready to photograph the brief transition period as it thinned, a time when brilliant and stunning but ephemeral light may appear. During my short drive to this location the fog remained thick, but just before reaching my destination it began to clear, likely because ground fog doesn’t stick around as long in the hills. As I parked and loaded up a light load (my lightweight trail photography setup) there were still some pockets of fog clinging to the hillsides, but in most places there was instead a sort of haze that glowed when I photographed in the direction of the sun. I’m very fond of this kind of light, so I quickly looked for subjects that I could use to advantage, and I soon found this tree standing on a grassy hillside and silhouetted against the glowing atmosphere beyond.

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: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Museum Windows, Central Park

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Museum Windows, Central Park
Visitors sit in a Metropolitan Museum window overlooking Central Park, Manhattan

Museum Windows, Central Park. New York City. December 26, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Visitors sit in a Metropolitan Museum window overlooking Central Park, Manhattan

At the end of 2017 we spent a week in New York City, mostly visiting our “kids,” but also visiting the city itself. It was a very cold week! Daytime temperatures stayed below freezing — sometimes way below — for five days straight, and nighttime temperatures were in the low teens. On a warm day in New York, it is great to be outside. On winter days like these it is also great to be outdoors in Manhattan… just not for very long! On this day we eventually joined the throngs headed to warm museums, picking the Met, where there is a big David Hockney exhibit that I wanted to see.

I photograph in New York often enough to begin to understand the place a little bit — though nowhere near to the level of those who live there. But I still have plenty to discover, and on this trip I discovered — realized, more accurately — in a conscious way how good the light can be there. This is especially so, I think, in winter. The sun is low in the sky and its light often comes in a low angles, reflecting and silhouetting, and frequently appearing right in my frame of view. I made this photograph quickly while walking through a hallway at the museum where groups of people were taking a break on the ledge of these windows, against the bright backdrop of a soft-focus view of Central Park trees and a bit of the Manhattan skyline.

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: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Hockney Observed

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Hockney Observed
Two museum visitors observe a David Hockney Painting

Hockney Observed. New York City. December 26, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two museum visitors observe a David Hockney Painting

We have been in New York City during the past week or so, on one of our frequent trips to visit sons and daughters-in-law there… and of course to also simply be in New York. (And, did I also mention “eat in New York?”) It has been cold — something like 10-15 degrees below normal during our visit — and among the practical cold weather activities here are museum visits. We already knew we wanted to see this David Hockney exhibit — we had seen the big Hockney exhibit in San Francisco a few years ago, and we just saw a SF Opera production of “Turandot” that used a Hockney-designed set.

So we joined the throngs on a very cold day at the Metropolitan Museum and went inside to see this exhibit. (Having not done our research ahead of time, we were unaware of the Michelangelo show also taking place, but we managed to visit that, too.) The exhibit was, not surprisingly, very popular and crowded, with a variety of work from across Hockney’s career — lots of the usual stuff, including two of his Grand Canyon landscape paintings. I made this photograph as two people stopped to view one of them.

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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Ghost Towns, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Abandoned Mill

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Abandoned Mill
The ruins of an abandoned mill in the desert backcountry

Abandoned Mill. Desert Mountains, California. April 4, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The ruins of an abandoned mill in the California desert backcountry

During the nearly twenty years since I first “discovered” California deserts, my experience with them has changed. To be honest, as a person largely focused on the coast and the Sierra, when I was younger I didn’t really know much about these wild places, and I wasn’t really attracted to them. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that I actually made a serious visit and began to “get it” about the things that make these areas so marvelous. At first, like almost anyone else, I focused on some of the most obvious and iconic places. But eventually as I returned to these places, especially to Death Valley National Park, I began to push out my boundaries bit by bit. As I did so I discovered many more interesting things about these places, both the natural wilderness and the human history. One of the first experiences that connected me to the human history was an accident. One evening I wandered away from a camp and just sat down on a boulder in an elevated location on an alluvial fan. I happened to look down to see an unusual rock. I picked it up and quickly realized that it was a cutting implement left their by the earliest people to make their lives here — and my notions of the depth and variety of human experience in the desert was profoundly altered.

That human influence has many facets. Certainly the experience of the people we now refer to as “native Americans” is central. (I like Canada’s term: “first people.”) Later settlers showed up for a range of reasons — pioneers passing through, prospectors chasing the dream of the big strike, folks looking for a job, people not well suited to living in the civilized world, and other. They all left traces. The prospectors and miners left lots of them all over the desert landscape, and you can’t travel around these places without running into it. The photograph is a detail from one amazing structure high on a desert ridge, abandoned only recently in the context of the larger scale of history, but still putting us in touch with an era that is mostly gone now from these places.

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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