I am often a bit uneasy about photographing street art, tags, and graffiti. In some cases it feels more like attention-getting vandalism than creative work. But there are exceptions in places where it seems to be mostly tolerated, and when the work seems like an interesting expression.
Continue reading Lisbon Graffiti #2
This photograph is a bit of an exercise in changing my perspective. If you were in Death Valley or other places where sand verbena grows and blooms, you might first notice a pinkish-purple color out on a gravel slope somewhere. Getting closer you would see large, sprawling individual plants with large pink-purple “flowers.” But a closer look reveals that these are actually globular clusters of many small flowers.
Continue reading Sand Verbena Flowers
Here is one more photograph of Lisbon graffiti, this one from a wall next to a sidewalk in the lower Alfama neighborhood. The colors and patterns are so vivid that you might not even notice the doorway in the wall behind the paint. The colors of this street anrt are were perhaps the most intense that I recall seeing.
Continue reading Lisbon Graffiti #1
As a landscape photographer I spend a lot of time trying to predict the light. But it is a fickle thing, and it often changes in ways that cannot be anticipated. That was the case on this winter solstice morning in Death Valley. We drove down to Badwater to photograph Lake Manly, the occasional lake that forms on the playa after heavy rains. We arrived before sunrise, and for a brief moment the light was brilliantly intense… before the sun moved behind clouds to the east, laving a softer effect.
The mountains fell mostly into shadow, and because of their distance the details were obscured, leaving us with the shape of the range and its reflection in the water of Lake Manly. Some of the first dawn color remained, but the effect was more subtle and muted, with colors ranging from warm tones in the brightest areas of clouds to deep blue in the far distance beyond the mountains.
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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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