Tag Archives: people

Evening Along the Canal

Evening Along the Canal
“Evening Along the Canal” — Visitors to Venice sit along the banks of a canal near the Campo Santa Maria Formosa at night.

This photograph of people lazily passing an evening along a canal in Venice almost didn’t see the light of day. It is a “left behind” photograph that languished in my raw file archives for the past three years. Every so often I revisit the archives, and I almost always discover something that I missed. How do I miss these images? Sometimes I think I had a different idea in mind for the photograph that did not work, and returning with fresh eyes allows me to see it anew. Or, as in this case, another photograph that I made almost next door to this one did make the initial cut, so I think I dismissed this one at the time and moved on.

We were in Venice in August that year. Believe it or not, we had not been there before, and we really felt that it shouldn’t be missed. So we put up with the crowds and heat and incorporated it into a larger trip to Southern Europe. On this evening we had eaten and then gone out for an evening walk in the cooler air, diminished crowds, and beautiful evening light.


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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

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Fountain of the Horses, Santiago de Compostela

Fountain of the Horses, Santiago de Compostela
“Fountain of the Horses, Santiago de Compostela” — Morning tourists near the “Fonte de Cabalos” (Fountain of the Horses) in Santiago de Compostela.

The “Fountain of the Horses” (“Fuente de los Caballos“) is a two-centuries-old monument in the Praza das Pratarías, a small square near various sacred buildings in the city. Its name comes from the four horses at the base of the statue. We passed though the square several times during our May visit.

While the fountain was on my mind when I made the photograph, it wasn’t the main thing that I was thinking about. (I mostly thought of it as a compositional element.) I was intrigued by the arrangement of buildings on the street at and around the square and by the morning light coming straight down a narrow street to the left… and also by the positions and colors of the people in the square.


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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.

Bubble Dancing

Bubble Dancing
“Bubble Dancing” — Children dance and spread soap bubbles at the Praça do Comércio, Lisbon.

On our May visit to Lisbon (and a few other places) one of our first outings was to simply walk down the street to the Praça do Comércio square on the waterfront. It is a pretty obvious tourist thing to do, but it was the morning after a late arrival following about 20 hours of travel… so we were not up for anything too stressful.

Someone had a big bucket of soap and was making bubbles on the square, and a group of exuberant children was running and dancing around them, unconcerned about what anyone else might think.

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

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A Lisbon Street

A Lisbon Street
“A Lisbon Street” — A narrow, curving street in Alfama, lined with colorful buildings.

From my limited experience, this feels like a “typical” street of Lisbon’s Alfama district… except that the street is wider than many of the passageways. The lines suggest that it is two lanes wide — though I imagine that when a trolley goes up and down those tracks there isn’t a lot of room for anyone else!

There is a lot in this scene that attracted my attention. The street itself with its pairs of tracks and optimistic center dividing line is one. The stacked and tightly spaced buildings are another. And I love the saturated colors, from the nearly pure white to the many yellow buildings, and the bits of blue here and there.

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

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(All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.)