Tag Archives: people

Photographs: England, Photographs: People, Photographs: Urban/Street

Colchester Billiards & Snooker Club

December 18, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A few people stand outside the Colchester Billiards and Snooker Club along a narrow curving street

During our lengthy travels (five weeks on the road!) this past summer we spent a bit more than a week in London. While most of our plans were in London, we decided to get out into the country at least once on this trip. So, more or less on a whim, we decided to take the train to the town of Colchester after reading a brief entry about it on some website or similar. (In some ways we are fans of injecting a bit of randomness into our trip planning — we often discover interesting things that way.)

Colchester is a smallish town at more or less the end of a spur railroad line. It obviously attracts a certain number of tourists, perhaps day trippers from London, since it has a number of shops and places to eat and so forth. It also has a few historic structures including a castle (of course!) and a very old church. On the other hand, it also features some mundane things — we saw a lot of hearing aid shops! Up this narrow, curving street I spotted an interesting spot of color in the green building, along with a few people populating the tables in front of the local Billiards and Snooker Club.

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

Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Urban/Street

It Doesn’t Help And No One Cares

December 10, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

This is, obviously, not “the usual” around here, but it seemed worth sharing. We were visiting a sort of art fair during a Thanksgiving visit to Southern California. At first I just looked at the arts and crafts, but having a camera in my hand I, of course, started to look at other things and to look at the event in different ways than most people who attend holiday fairs.

I could probably write an essay about this little photograph, but I’ll keep it short. At this mostly happy event, there was, once I looked more closely, a surprising undercurrent of lonely looking people. The man sitting on the bench in the spot of sunlight, hands in front between his legs and head falling to the side, was certainly not the only one. However, the juxtaposition of this person with another man wearing a shirt with the cynical slogan, ostensibly during a “holiday” event, was jarring.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: France

Musée d’Orsay, Interior

November 20, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The main interior area of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Even though we had almost a week in Paris this past summer, there was simply too much to see — not that this was a surprise! We knew that there were certain things that we simply had to see, and we knew that we wanted to visit several museums, some small and some large. We visit a small photography museum one day, and we visited a portion of the Louvre on another, but there were other things to see and do as well.

All of this is to explain our unfortunately brief visit to Musée d’Orsay, which we only managed to get to near the end of our trip, and then on an afternoon when the place was only going to be open a few more hours. We went in and rushed to see at least a few things that we knew we did not want to miss, and I found time to make just a few photographs, including this one of the airy interior of the building just before it closed.

Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Urban/Street

Cafe, Tourists, and Duomo

October 9, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning visitors walk past an outdoor cafe and the Duomo, Florence

At the risk of repeating something I’ve previously shared, when I travel I often almost make it a point to not know too much precise detail about where I’m going, especially if the place is new. (I won’t go so far as wanting to know nothing, since that could make things very complicated!) The idea is that this lets me discover the place when I get there, thus giving me a sort of personal map of the location and my own orientation to it. This also means that I can have the joy of actual discovery while I’m on location, as differentiated by the recognition that, yeah, I know about this place.

I almost hesitate to admit how naive I was about Florence. I knew some odd background facts — for example, the importance of the Florentine camera — in classical music. But beyond that I know pretty much that a) it is in Italy and b) driving there isn’t supposed to be fun. My first major moment of “discovery” was walking around a corner to see the Duomo at night — I think that the experience was more awesome (in the true sense of “evoking awe”) than it would have been if I had read about the place. I made this photograph on our last morning in Florence, as we made a final visit to the area around the Duomo before heading to the airport to begin our long journey home.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: people

Colchester Billiards & Snooker Club

It Doesn’t Help And No One Cares

Musée d’Orsay, Interior

Cafe, Tourists, and Duomo

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