“Max Headroom 14 Feet” — A roll-up garage door in an alcove, Aberdeen.
Our May visit to Aberdeen, Scotland marked a transition on our trip. We had just completed a week-plus driving tour of Northwest Scotland, where we spent a lot of time in rural and wild areas. After returning our rental car in Inverness, we went straight to the station and boarded a train to Aberdeen, where we planned a quiet stop before heading on to Ireland. Why Aberdeen? Patty had visited the city decades ago when she went to the UK for an international orchestra festival. She wanted to return and see what she might remember of Aberdeen.
A safety pylon casts a shadow on green metal panels next to black plastic.
This photograph came out of my participation in a project to photograph orange things (around Halloween, not surprisingly) with a group of fellow photographers. The group gets together every so often — virtually at the current time — to share recent photographic work. I suspect that the reasons include both social value and photographic value, but these little exercises can be useful, especially if you are trying to get “un-stuck,” are looking to explore something different, or are just seeking out a way to practice the work of seeing.
Because it was around Halloween I wanted to avoid going for the low-hanging fruit and just photographing pumpkins and autumn leaves. So for a couple of weeks as I walked around my community I kept my eyes open for anything orange. I also started to try to think a bit more broadly about what it meant to photograph orange — and one idea was that orange could easily just be one component color in a subject. Since I was looking for that color, it isn’t a surprise that the pylon first caught my attention. But I quickly started thinking about the relationship between green and orange, the shadow, and the dark pattern at the left side.
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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Doorway, green wall, roll-up door, a pylon, and autumn leaves at an urban business.
This is a photograph I made on one of my long, almost-daily “pandemic walks” that circle out from my neighborhood to include everything from residential neighborhoods to light industrial areas and more. This building is along one of my common routes, and I probably pass by several times per week, usually without paying it much attention.
Scenes like this seem to me to contain more than might be immediately apparent. Objectively it is just a door in the side of a boring concrete industrial warehouse. But a few of the oddities attract me —‚ the brightly colored pylon, the oddly tilting yellow pole with its shadow pointing to the door, various geometries, and that wild green color.
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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
Sheet metal fence, roll-up door, trash, and hand-written message to the garbage man, Brooklyn
“Please close and lock this gage. Garbage man”
I know this will baffle a few readers… but there you go. I’m tempted to offer little explanation and let you make of it what you will. This small vignette comes from a semi-industrial area beneath a bridge in a section of Brooklyn, New York. Is that cryptic enough? ;-)
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
