Tag Archives: park

DUMBO Afternoon

September 3, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

People along the waterfront, DUMBO, Brooklyn Bridge Park

I think I was vaguely aware at the time when I made this photograph that I was being affected by a painting that I had seen a few days earlier in Chicago. We traveled from California to New York City by train on this visit, and we stopped for a couple of days in Chicago — since we had to switch trains we figured that this gave us an excuse to visit that city a bit. Among other attractions, the Art Institute of Chicago is there, located in Millennium Park, which was just a short walk from where we were staying. There was a lot to see there, but one of the more famous pieces is Georges Seurat’s “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte,” so we had to go see it. I was already familiar with other paintings by Seurat and with this one by means of reproductions, but it is a very different experience to see such a thing in person. I have a habit (perhaps annoying to friends and family members!) of taking a lot of time with original work like this — I can never know when or if I’ll see it again, so I spend enough time going over it, somewhat methodically, that I can begin to see features that aren’t visible with a quicker look and I can also fix many elements of the thing in my mind so that I can recall them later.

As we walked along the Brooklyn waterfront a few days later and paused near the river taxi terminal, I began to look at the people who were busy walking, standing, and making photographs of themselves along the water from a sort of personal Seurat perspective. I waited for a group with an interesting set of clothing colors to arrange themselves in an interesting composition and perhaps create a sense that each of them, individually or in groups, might have a story: a woman stands alone, another looks toward other people, a man squats to make a photograph, a couple in purple and orange converse near the fence, two young women are exercising their dogs, a couple at the right (both of whom wear green) look out of the frame.

For those who many not know, “DUMBO” is the name of an area in Brooklyn — it is located Directly Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Telescope Peak

August 30, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Telescope Peak, the highest point in Death Valley National Park, in the distance beyond the rugged terrain of upper Titanothere Canyon in the Amargosa Range

This one has been sitting in my queue for months now, and it is finally time to send it out with the other photographs! I made the photograph back in early April, while spending a few days in Death Valley exploring a lot of higher elevation area in the mountains on either side of the Valley itself. At one point during this visit, we ended up spending nearly an entire day high up in the Panamint range, at times doing something very unusual — photographing Death Valley wildflowers during a snowstorm!

The distant snow-covered peak in the photograph is Telescope Peak, at over 11,000′ of elevation the highest point in the Panamint range and in Death Valley National Park. While we often think of Death Valley’s reputation for heat, this peak is often covered with snow during the colder times of the year. The location from which I made this photograph is high in the mountains on the other, east side of the Valley, a very arid and rugged region that presents a different appearance than the much lower areas of the Valley itself. Here there is a landscape of dry and rugged mountains and valleys, often receding one behind the other into the distance. I stopped at this spot, where I have photographed before, and was captivated by the conduction of three peak shapes — the nearly peak at upper right, the distant summit of Telegraph Peak, and the peak-like form of the clouds above.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Calero Oaks and Summer Grass

August 28, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Oak and grass-covered summer hills extending into late summer morning haze

This is a portrait orientation version of more of less the same scene I shared in an earlier photograph from the same mid-August morning hike through a familiar, long time favorite local hiking and photography location. It is an area full of grasslands and oak-covered hills, lush and green for a few months each winter and spring, and then California gold/brown for much of the rest of the year. I have hiked these hills and this specific trail for many years, though it had been several months since my last prior visit — it was good to be “home” again!

This morning was special for a few reasons. There was a wonderful feeling of returning to “my world” following a few months away from this place and my return, only days earlier, from a lengthy trip to the east coast that included more than a week in the very urban environment of New York City. It also turned out, a bit to my surprise, that this hike would bring my annual “autumn is just around the corner” experience — that day each year when something tells me clearly that summer is beginning to wind down and that the beauties of autumn are not far away.

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

Oaks and Grass, Late Summer

August 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Late summer morning fog clears about oak and grass-covered California hills

Today’s photographic journey was a short one — back to a local park where I have photographed for quite a few years, though not recently. This is a place that I used to go to almost every week, and where I hiked just about every trail, to the point that I became intimately familiar with the place in all seasons. It is a landscape of rolling hills with a few high, rocky outcroppings, many oak trees, and grassland. In the manner of most of California, the grass deeply affects the appearance — changing from “impossible green” in winter and spring to brown or golden, depending upon your disposition. I think of it as golden.

This morning I was in a bit of an autumn frame of mind. (A separate post today will have more to say about that pleasant state.) I got up early to discover that the area was covered by the typical coastal high fog. (I live perhaps an hour’s drive from the Pacific Ocean.) This is not the sort of romantic and moody fog that sits low to the ground and floats among trees. It is the higher, drab, gray kind of fog that produces an undifferentiated sky and very flat light. However, at this time of year that fog will most certainly clear, usually by mid-morning. So I left home in these gray conditions, planning to be among the oaks and grass when the fog began to break up.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: park

DUMBO Afternoon

Telescope Peak

Calero Oaks and Summer Grass

Oaks and Grass, Late Summer

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.