Tag Archives: reflection

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Pond, Clearing Fog

Image December 8, 2022 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Tule fog begins to clear above a Central Valley pond on a late-autumn morning.

Tule fog thins above a Central Valley pond on a late-autumn morning.

The core of my landscape photography follows a pattern linked to the seasons — no surprise, I suppose, since the landscape is so profoundly affected by seasonal changes. Every year at this time my attention turns to California’s Great Central Valley, where the combination of migratory birds, tule fog, and its minimal landscape become my focus. I finally made it out there this week for the first time this season.

I suppose “normal people” would avoid this area on a day like this. Objectively speaking, this thick fog is not conducive to travel, and those who live there get tired of days and weeks of the cold and damp. But these conditions turn a landscape that can be a bit pedestrian into something mysterious and atmospheric. When I arrived before dawn the fog was so thick that I couldn’t see more than perhaps a hundred feet. But shortly after sunrise the fog began to drift and thin, faint windows opened in the sky above, and soft light began to subtly illuminate the landscape.

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.

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Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: New England

Lake and Sky, New Hampshire

Image December 1, 2022 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

You may have seen a different version of this scene rendered in black and white — I posted it not long after our return from photographing New England fall color this year. During the first days of our visit we photographed in the iconic Kancamagus Highway region between Concord and Lincoln — and it was, as predicted, quite spectacular… and quite crowded. But then we explored a bit more widely, and we stopped to photograph this lake on a long loop that took us much farther north in New Hampshire.

There’s one other semi-notably thing about this photograph — I made it on an iPhone 14. I’m not giving up my Big Boy Cameras any time soon, but on this trip I played around with using the iPhone to capture some subjects — quick panoramas, record shots, photographs after dark. In a few cases, in addition to setting up the big camera and tripod, I put the iPhone in raw-capture mode and made a few photographs just to see what it could do. The answer? Quite a bit!

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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Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: New England

Lake, Clouds, Floating Leaves

Image October 17, 2022 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

This photograph could probably generate a chapter of commentary, but I’ll keep to the traditional two paragraphs. Recently I was asked about making black and white photographs of autumn “color,” and I said that I do so on occasion, at least in part just to push myself to consider how it can be done — what, besides the color, can suggest the feelings of autumn? In addition, this photograph is also the result of the “wandering around” that I mentioned in the previous post — getting away from the obvious places, even when visiting unfamiliar locations. There’s also something technically different about this photograph, though I think I’ll leave that as a mystery. I’ll bet no one figures out what I’m referring to…

A few days into our October New England visit we left the iconic Kancamagus Parkway area behind and headed north and east on, more or less, a “random ride.” This took us away from the tall ridges of the White Mountains, and into different landscapes featuring lower hills, valleys, and more rivers, creeks, and lakes. Near the northern-most point of our route the roadway crossed a quiet lake. We stopped to make photographs of the leaves littering its surface and the reflections of beautiful clouds.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Free Beans

Image October 9, 2022 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A very worn, largely illegible, and graffiti-covered sign on a Manhattan business.

We don’t know if they are good beans, but at least they are free, or so we are led to believe. This window, made opaque, was under scaffolding that covered a sidewalk next to the building in Manhattan. Such scaffolding seems ubiquitous to me. I can’t vouch for this, but I was told by someone who should know about such things that the scaffolding contractors like to leave the stuff up since it is less expensive than moving it and warehousing it!

This kind of forgotten urban detritus fascinates me. At some point in the past, someone must have put some thought into the signage, determining which colors to use, what size fonts to use for different text, and aligning those yellow lines that divide it into sections. But neglect, weather, and graffiti have done their work, and today it is hard to even figure out what the sign is about.