A person walks on a path through a grove above the night lights of San Francisco
This is another of my handheld night photographs, something I’ve been experimenting with for a couple of years now. Newer high ISO small handheld cameras make it possible to work without a tripod in the urban landscape, essentially doing street photography in the (near) darkness. While there are some compromises in pure image quality — more noise to deal with in post, and greater potential for motion blur, working this way makes in possible to photograph in ways that just aren’t possible with a tripod. I can move quickly and respond to changing subjects more readily, and I’m less of an obvious intrusion on the scene.
This photograph might seem like one for which a tripod would be appropriate. I can’t argue with that on a technical basis. But I point out that between the time I saw this person walking along the path and the time I made three quick exposures was measured in seconds. With a tripod-mounted camera I simply would not have been able to make the photograph.
Visitors to Manhattan’s Central Park on a sunny summer afternoon
I love the natural landscape, especially my familiar “friends” of the Sierra Nevada, the California coast, the redwoods, the western deserts, and others that are close enough to me that I regard them as part of my greater neighborhood. But I also love cities. The differences between the two worlds are obvious — loud and fast versus quiet and still, lots of crowds versus solitude, a constructed world versus a natural one. But they are not, perhaps, as entirely separate as we might think. When we visit either of these worlds we invariably bring at least some of the world we left behind. (Sometime when I feel like writing a lot more about the topic, I may share some ideas I have about the dangers of regarding the natural and human worlds as being altogether separate and distinct.)
In any case, we were again in New York earlier this summer, partly for the city itself and partly (mostly?) to visit family. We ended up in Central Park more than once, and on the last visit I think we sort of got to experience the park a bit as the “locals” do, when we put together a picnic with our “kids” and staked out a spot in Sheep Meadow to join the New Yorkers on the Fourth of July. Perhaps because that which seems natural is here so overwhelmed by that which seems constructed, it seems like at least some New Yorkers may almost feel more strongly about their local “natural spaces” than folks do in less urbanized environments. This photograph was made on an earlier walk through the park, when we traveled along paths that took us past this small but very popular lake.
The Ocean View Trail traverses a grove of young trees, Muir Woods National Monument
First let me get a few preliminaries out of the way. Despite the title of this photograph, there I no “ocean view” here, and despite hiking a good distance up this trail I never saw one — perhaps due to the fog but also to never getting high enough above the valley or out of the trees. Second, and perhaps of more interest to some who use Canon equipment, I had a chance to work with the new Canon EF 16-35mm f/4 L IS lens for the first time on this shoot. I’ll have more to say about that in a separate post, since I know that quite a few folks are interested in this lens. All I’ll say on that technical subject here is that I was not disappointed! (Link goes to site sponsor B&H Photography.)
The conditions on this morning were those of a typical San Francisco summer day — in other words, it was foggy! There are, at least from my point of view, significant advantages to this. It can be quite warm in Northern California this time of year, especially if you get away from the coast, so the cool coastal fog is almost always a welcome relief. The fog also softens the light, and when shooting in a forest like this one that is often quite important — brighter sunlight can send light beams to the forest floor that make for very wide dynamic range and a harsh effect. And, not insignificantly, the fog means that this photographer doesn’t have to get up quite so early to have this wonderful, soft light. This trail branches off from the very popular (absurdly popular at the wrong times on the wrong days) main trail up the valley of Redwood Creek, with its easy access to the redwood trees. The Ocean View trail climbs, steeply at times, at first through redwoods and then at times through more open vegetation. In this section all of the trees appear to be very young and packed together closely. I liked the patterns of their dense trunks and also the slight glow of light on the trail.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Hikers descend the trail from the ice caves of Eisriesenwelt above the town of Werfen, Austria
Over a period of three weeks, our July 2013 visit to Europe took us to parts of Germany and Austria, and to London before that. The London portion of the trip was almost wholly and urban experience, but the time in Germany (with side trips into Austria) was quite a bit more varied. One significant difference is that while we hit our share of tourist areas, that’s not all we did since a) we were visiting relatives who are long-time residents of Germany and b) we traveled, as we often do, without a specific advance plan about what we would visit – at least beyond our fixed plan to stay in certain places on certain dates. Perhaps for this reason, and because I travel as a photographer as much as a tourist, the photographs from this trip may seem a bit eclectic and will cover a wide range of subjects.
This photograph was made at a popular tourist attraction not far from Salzburg and above town of Werfen, the Eisriesenwelt, also known as the Eisriesenwelt Ice Cave. There is a lot to say about this place – too much for this post – but I’ll give a bit of background. The cave is located far up the mountainside – more of a cliff, actually – above the town. The popular tour visits amazing underground ice formations near the mouth of the cave, though I understand that the cave system goes much farther back into the mountains. After driving up from Werfen, you walk uphill a short distance to a ski-lift style cable car system that takes you up the steep face almost to the cave… but you still have an additional uphill walk from there to the cave itself. (This being Europe, though, you can stop at the parking lot, the lower end of the tram, the upper end of the tram, and the same places going back down to sit, have a bite to eat, and drink a beer!) The trail between the upper tram station and the entrance to the cave is quite something. It traverses terrain that would scare the life out of people not used to very high and very exposed places – though a very civilized path has been built along the edge of the void, covered in some places for protection from rockfall. In this photograph, a section of the trail winds around a promontory with the deep Salzach Valley and Alpine ridges beyond.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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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.
