Tag Archives: people

Photographs: People, Photographs: Southern California

Observation Deck, Griffith Observatory

December 19, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Visitors to Griffith Observatory overlook Los Angeles twilight.

We were in Southern California over the Thanksgiving holiday, visiting our daughter and son-in-law. On the weekend we decided to head up to Los Angeles for various things, including a visit to the Frans Lanting show at the Annenberg Space for Photography. We finished up there, headed out for food (of course!) and then decided to head to Griffith Park.

We were apparently among approximately 350,000 people with the same idea! I’m not sure what a typical crowd looks like here, but this one was huge. We finally abandoned our rental car well below the observatory and found a shuttle bus that went up the hill. We arrived a bit before sunset and found that hordes were already there. But I can see why — it is a spectacular location. Although I was only carrying my “little camera,” I decided to see what I could come up with. Eventually I photographed the actual sunset, but first I turned the camera towards the people crowded onto the walkways around the observatory and standing in the beautiful light watching the evening develop.

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

Photographs: Night, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Chinatown Street Scene

November 19, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Tourists on the sidewalk in front of a brightly lit souvenir shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown district

Another evening in San Francisco, another photograph of people walking along the sidewalk in front of a Chinatown shop. These are becoming something of a theme, or so it seems. I’m not exactly certain where I made this one, but I feel like it might not have been along the main tourist area of Grant Street — but I’m prepared to be wrong.

My approach is to look for good light first and to then find a composition and people to fill it. Some interesting elements, like the stairway at the right, are nice, too. I’m always looking for spots where light spills onto the sidewalk, offering the potential to illuminate passers-by when they enter the scene. It is even better if street lights or the lights of another shop provide just a bit of front light to fill in the shadows. Aside from the way that all of the people managed to position themselves across the frame, I think I owe the woman to choose to wear the red dress on this evening.

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

Photographs: Photographers

Photographer Scot Miller, Yosemite Backcountry

November 8, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Photographer Scot Miller at work on a ridge in the backcountry of Yosemite National Park

I have been fortunate to get to know photographer Scot Miller over the past few years. I write “photographer,” but a more complete accounting would include videographer, author, and much more. I met Scot through my association with a group of photographers who have been photographing in the Yosemite backcountry for the past 15 years or so — sometimes referred to as the “First Light” photographers in recognition of their beautiful book, First Light: Five Photographers Explore Yosemite’s Wilderness. (The others are Charles Cramer, Karl Kroeber, Mike Osborne, and Keith Walklet.)

This past September three of us (Scot, Charlie, and myself) spent a bit more than a week base-camped at a backcountry Yosemite National Park lake making photographs. By staying in one location for so long we become acquainted with the location in ways that would not be possible in the normal backpacking mode, in which one tends to move from place to place daily. Instead we have the opportunity to let the character of the place sink in, to wander slowly, to return to spots we saw earlier, and to experience a range of conditions — which on this trip included everything from Sierra sun, though wildfire smoke, to a couple of days of rain. One morning, without planning to do so, Scot and I ran into one another high on this ridge above our lake.

Photographs: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Staggering Couple

October 4, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A couple staggers past a closed business along a San Francisco sidewalk.

To me, this photograph has a sort of strange and somewhat perverse quality — like a scene from some bizarre circus or suggesting a madhouse or a dream. It is, admittedly, something of a construction — a construction by means of limiting what is shown of the surroundings and by means of a shutter speed slow enough to blur details and create a fantastical quality. It didn’t hurt that the postures of the couple are somewhat awkward and strange.

As is so often the case for me when photographing in places like this, my attention first went to the architecture and the wild colors and patterns painted on the closed shutters of this shop. That would be somewhat interesting, but hard to make work as a photograph on its own, especially when shooting handheld. And then this couple appeared, walking (sort of) along the sidewalk, hanging onto each other. Set against this incongruous background, they become something quite different from what they actually were.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: people

Observation Deck, Griffith Observatory

Chinatown Street Scene

Photographer Scot Miller, Yosemite Backcountry

Staggering Couple

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