Tag Archives: red

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

Red Pants

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Red Pants
“Red Pants” — People and their reflections on a walkway at SFMOMA

In my continuing effort to make my landscape photograph fans uncomfortable — just kidding! — here is another urban/street photograph from a recent day in San Francisco. As members of SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) we got tickets for the members’ pre-opening this week. (The museum officially reopens on May 14, following two years of a major renovation and expansion project.) To answer the obvious first question… the new building is beautiful in almost all ways. (It isn’t perfect, but what is.) We greatly enjoyed our visit, during which we managed to spend time in mostly the new areas, but also revisited a lot of the older structure as well.

I love museums, especially art museums, and I can spend hours in them, looking and thinking and making mental associations. But I also like photographing them — for the interesting architectural features which often produce a lot of very interesting light and geometry, but also as places to watch people. But I often have to be very quick, and that was the case here. I first saw this fellow in the red pants walking my direction, against a background of mostly colorless architecture and flat light. I had just time to make two very quick exposures. Initially I wasn’t hopeful about this one, as I felt that I had almost missed him as he walked out of the frame — but in the end that positioning ended up seeming to be the most interesting to me.

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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.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Sunrise, Marshland, Birds

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Sunrise, Marshland, Birds
Thousands of migratory geese fly above foggy San Joaquin Valley marshland at dawn

Sunrise, Marshland, Birds. San Joaquin Valley, California. February 26, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Thousands of migratory geese fly above foggy San Joaquin Valley marshland at dawn

On this late-February day we arrived at the wetlands well before dawn, slowed by heavy tule fog along the final miles of our route. The fog was thick but not deep, and while our horizontal view was obscured we could see that objects as short as utility poles extended above the fog layer. At our destination we finally stopped, and got out of the vehicle to set up camera equipment and to get the lay of the land.

Almost immediately flocks of geese began erupting from ponds and taking to the sky, thousands at a time. First a group nearby, then one far off to one side, then another at the distant edge of the refuge, and so on until the sky was filled with them. We thought that it was perhaps the greatest bird tumult that we had seen, and we had arrived just in time to see it. (Of course, only a few days later we experienced an even more monumental evening, with tens of thousands of geese and cranes.) At first we simply photographed the birds in the low light, but eventually I turned my attention to the landscape and made a few photographs across the tule ponds toward the first light developing above the Sierra crest far to our east.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Klamath Basin Dawn

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Klamath Basin Dawn
Klamath Basin dawn light and clouds reflected in wetlands ponds.

Klamath Basin Dawn. Lower Klamath NWR, California. February 12, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Klamath Basin dawn light and clouds reflected in wetlands ponds.

Getting up early enough to drive to a location and photograph before dawn is no fun. It is not uncommon for me to have to wake up two, three, or more hours before dawn, and this is always a struggle. The alarm goes off, and I force myself out of bed quickly — otherwise there is a very real danger that my eyes will close and I’ll fall asleep before I know what happened. (I’ve done this, only to awaken so much later that my trip had to be abandoned!) In the darkness I dress for the cold, grab gear and some food, and off I go, sometimes to drive for an hour or two.

This morning’s drive was nearly but not quite an hour, but my destination was a place I had never visited before, so I was a bit concerned about finding my way around in the darkness. Arriving in the general vicinity, I soon figured out the rough lay of the land in darkness and headed off in an interesting direction as the first light appeared. And what light it was! A weather front passing to the west had scattered high clouds above the mountains to my east. The clouds turned brilliant colors well before sunrise, and the reflections of the warm tones of the sky mingled with the cool blue tones of water in the shallow ponds as I pulled up and began my wait for migratory birds. On a morning like this, standing in the cool air under a sky like this as I hear the early calls of geese and swans, I have no doubts at all about the wisdom of getting up in the darkness.

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Walking in Rain

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Walking in Rain
Three pedestrians share an umbrella on a rainy New York morning

Walking in Rain. New York City. December 2, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Three pedestrians share an umbrella on a rainy New York morning

My recollection is that we had gone to sort of the East Village area on this morning, first to find some pastry and coffee for breakfast at a place we’ve been to before, and then to wander about making some photographs in this urban area on a cool and wet morning. Breakfast and coffee taken care of, we started walking and watching the urban landscape and its human wildlife.

There is, of course, quite a lot to see, and much of it appears and disappears quickly. I rarely have a lot of time to think about a photograph, and quite often I have to move fast, composing on the fly. When this trio walked past I immediately noticed their color palette of basically black and red/pink and thought that there might be a photograph. We were already walking this direction so I quickly made a few exposures of this group of friends or relatives as they walked along, close together and sharing an umbrella on this drizzly morning.

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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