Tag Archives: pattern

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Frozen Pond and Sierra Nevada Range, Owens Valley

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Frozen Pond and Sierra Nevada Range, Owens Valley
Frozen Pond and Sierra Nevada Range, Owens Valley

Frozen Pond and Sierra Nevada Range, Owens Valley. Long Valley Area, California. October 9, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The snow-dusted eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada reflected in the surface of a frozen pond on the high desert of Owens Valley, California.

On a very cold early October morning this year I ended up driving out into Owens Valley toward the Owens River after I spotted some interesting morning fog while driving out of Mammoth Lakes on highway 395. Although I had started out with the intention of photographing aspens, when I saw the fog I changed my plans and decided to leave the aspen photography for later. I first drove to a small lake where I have photographed several times in the past, a lake that provides very still water at sunrise and great reflections of the peaks of the Sierra crest which were covered with the snow from a series of early season storms.

After sunrise I decided that I was finished at that lake, so I got back in the vehicle and went exploring on some gravel roads that wander around in the general area of Hot Creek and Owens River. At first I aimed for some ground fog-covered areas that I had spotted earlier, and for a section of creek where the warm water seems to frequently create interesting fog on cold mornings. I arrived at this creek, took a look around, and decided that it wasn’t quite what I wanted to photograph, so I kept driving, ending up on some roads I had not visited before. As I crossed one long flat area of rangeland I passed this mall frozen pond, drove a bit further, and then turned around to come back and photograph it with the early morning – but no longer dawn – like on the snow-covered peaks just south of Mammoth.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

Alcatraz and Yerba Buena Islands, San Francisco Bay, Foggy Morning Light

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Alcatraz and Yerba Buena Islands, San Francisco Bay, Foggy Morning Light
Alcatraz and Yerba Buena Islands, San Francisco Bay, Foggy Morning Light

Alcatraz and Yerba Buena Islands, San Francisco Bay, Foggy Morning Light. San Francisco, California. March 21, 2009 © Copyright 2009 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

San Francisco Bay morning fog over begins to break up over Alcatraz and Yerba Buena Islands and the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge.

I made this photograph back around the start of spring in 2009. I recall shooting from the Marin Headlands back toward the Bay as the fog began to break up, still obscuring the view but allowing beams of light to begin to come through the gloom and light up portions of the Bay. Alcatraz Island is at upper left and beyond that is the Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island complex.

Many things intrigued me about this scene. Although it is in shadow still, Alcatraz stands out as the clearest object in the scene. The patterns on the water were amazing, created by a combination of the normal surface waves, the wakes of ships that had passed, and the mottled and mixed lighting of areas of fog and sun. Beyond the main subjects and over the East Bay shoreline around Oakland, light beams come down from the clearing fog.

This photograph is also an example of why I save and later review all of my raw files. Either because I don’t understand the image when I first make it or perhaps I move on to the next project too quickly sometimes it is not unusual when a photograph “slips through the cracks” and I end up overlooking it. This was one of those photographs… which I now find hard to understand.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Textures, Photographs: Urban/Street

Reflections, Metal Wall, WTC Site

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Reflections, Metal Wall, WTC Site
Reflections, Metal Wall, WTC Site

Reflections, Metal Wall, WTC Site. New York, New York, August 23, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A metal wall near the World Trade Center site reflects the colors of surrounding buildings and passers-by.

During our recent visit to New York City we spent some time at the World Trade Center site. This is the third time we have been there. The first was right around New Years 2000, when we did the typical tourist thing and went to the top of the WTC at night and looked over the city. It was an innocent time, wasn’t it?

The second visit was not until a year ago after our oldest son moved to Brooklyn and got a job working within a few blocks of the site. After nearly a decade of media coverage of the events of 9/11 and all of the associations connected with that event, walking up to the actual place was a powerful and sobering experience. At that time, there was nothing much to see other than what appeared as a giant empty space occupied by cranes.

This year things were different in many ways but the same in many others. The area is now a hotbed of activity, with impressive new buildings soaring skyward, construction workers and equipment everywhere. From the right vantage points, portions of the site are beginning to show signs of what the place will become when it is finished – we could even see an area where new trees are planted. As we walked a circle around the area though, reminders of what happened there are still to be found, both small and large. The memory of coming upon a nearby fire station with its poster filled with the photographs of scores who lost their lives on that date affects me even now as I write this.

This photograph was made as we walked along what I recall as the north side of the site, past the new tower that is rapidly becoming the tallest structure in lower Manhattan. A busy sidewalk travels through here, squeezed between the construction area and existing buildings. This metal wall was on one of those buildings, and it is colored by reflections of people passing by, buildings, and sky.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Textures

Detail, EMP Museum, Seattle

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Detail, EMP Museum, Seattle
Detail, EMP Museum, Seattle

Detail, EMP Museum. Seattle, Washington. July 30, 2006. © Copyright 2006 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Distorted and colorful reflections on the metal surface of the Frank Gehry-designed EMP Museum in Seattle, Washington.

I made this photograph, and a series of them of this subject, during a visit to Seattle back in 2006. After seeing the exhibits at the EMP Museum, I spent some time wandering around the Frank Gehry designed building and looking for photographs.

Seattle seems like a great place to photograph architecture – you are almost guaranteed soft light! Here I had a mostly cloudy sky with a few spots of blue sky, so the basic light was very nice. In addition, the building itself is, in places, one giant fun house mirror. In this shot the reflective panels are picking up their own coloration, some clouds and blue sky, and some extremely distorted reflections of nearby carnival rides – and all of that stuff is set off against the sky blue curving shapes projecting from the building at the upper right. Some of the colors reflected in the wall panels are so colorful as to almost be over-saturated, and with the strange distortions they create the effect seems almost hallucinogenic! Is there any color that cannot be found somewhere on that wall?

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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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.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)