Tag Archives: red

Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Street Light, Siena

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Streetlight, Siena
A wall-mounted streetlight bearring the colors of a Siena contrada.

Street Light, Siena. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A wall-mounted streetlight bearring the colors of a Siena contrada.

A few years back during a weeks-long trip through portions of Europe, we stayed in Tuscany for about a week and a half. We drove down from Germany (where Patty’s brother lives), stopped briefly in Bologna, continued on to Florence, and then to a place in this hills between there and Siena where we stayed for about a week. (We concluded this visit with a few days in Florence before flying home.) One one of those days in the hills we drove to Siena and spent a good part of the day there.

Our visit to Siena was too short… but at least we had time to do a brief exploration and realize that it would be worth a return trip. The old section of the city is a wonderful maze of narrow, twisting streets that eventually lead to the famous central square. The city is divided into 22 districts, each of which is identified by an animal and, as I understand it, a color scheme. The colors appear everywhere, but I thought they were especially notable on the novel street lights like this one.

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.

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Photographs: Nature

Red Leaves

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Red Leaves
Red and purple spring leaves

Red Leaves. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Red and purple spring leaves.

I made this photograph during a morning visit to a botanical garden with Patty a few weeks ago. We arrived early enough that there were still areas next to hedges, under trees, and near structures that remained in the shade — the full daylight sun is often too intense and harsh for this sort of photography. These leaves, while themselves in shade, were close enough to brighter light to puck up some directional highlights.

The colors actually were pretty much this intense. The plant has very reddish (or maroon in some light) leaves, and the shadows shifted the balance toward blue. Something that only occurred to me much later — the soft, rounded shapes of the background level almost suggest the very blurry bokeh shapes in the even further distance.

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.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Colorful Desert Hills, Morning

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Colorful Desert Hills, Morning
Multi-colored strata in eroded desert hills

Colorful Desert Hills, Morning. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Multi-colored strata in eroded desert hills.

The colors of some of the strata laid bare in desert regions like this one are sometimes wild and occasionally unbelievable. The blue tones often provide some of the most striking surprises, since that may be the last color we expect to see in soil or large expanses of rock — reds, browns, yellows are far more common.

I made this photograph in a little area that is almost a lab of eroded forms and varied colors. I like to photograph here in the morning, when I often have the place to myself and when there is the possibility of soft, low-angle light. Here the strata of tan, red, and blue materials run at right angles to the lines produced by erosion.

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.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Photographs: Nature

Lupine And Paintbrush

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The flowers of lupine and paintbrush plants, Pinnacles National Park
The flowers of lupine and paintbrush plants, Pinnacles National Park

Lupine And Paintbrush. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The flowers of lupine and paintbrush plants, Pinnacles National Park.

I found these wildflowers — lupine and paintbrush — along the High Peaks Trail and Pinnacles National Park on a recent visit this spring. I had gone there to try to catch the tail end of the spring wildflower season, which was quite good this year following heavier-than-average rainfall. I also felt like it was time for a good hike over some mountainous terrain. This route gave me both.

While wildflower photography constitutes a small portion of my work, I’ve been attracted to the subject ever since I started going into outdoor places decades ago. This year, for the first time, I finally have a macro lens, arguably the ideal tool for this subject. My ideal wildflower subject probably has some combination of the following: an interesting flower or flowers, perhaps some colors that are both striking and interact well, soft light, a background that is either not distracting or which can be made so with focusing techniques. This one group of flowers gave me most of that. In an area that was largely in sun and mostly featured clumps of individual types of flowers, here I found the red paintbrush and the blue/purple lupine juxtaposed in a narrow band of shade.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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