Exterior surface of a Chicago building, including distorted window reflections
This is another small bit of Chicago urban landscape, this time a detail of a downtown building that contrasts the very regular and geometric shapes of textures of the vertical and horizontal features against the wildly random and distorted patterns in the windows.
(“A Photograph Exposed” is a series exploring some of my photographs in greater detail.)
“Shoreline Reflections, Trees and Rocks” — Silhouetted trees and boulders and their reflections lining a flooded section of the shoreline of Tenaya Lake.
This photograph is a personal favorite for a bunch of reasons related to how the photograph came about, the experience of making the photograph, associations with the place, and a print that pleases me a great deal.
I maintain the no photographer’s work is wholly original. What comes closest to being truly original is the personal vision of the artist — that particular way of seeing that the photographer develops. That vision is actually unique, but it is built from experiences and exposure to a visual world that includes the ways of seeing of other photographers and painters and more. I acknowledge and am grateful to a wide range of photographers whose work informs my way of seeing the world.
Among them is Charlie Cramer, who I’m fortunate to count not only as a photographic influence, but also as a friend. Charlie’s way of seeing light appeals to me a great deal, and among the photographs of his that stick in my mind is one of some very similar trees at this exact lake. When I’m in a place where another photographer’s photograph immediately comes to mind I often feel cautious about making a photograph that might look too much like their work — and this one may be an example of “influenced by” but “not like.”
A person wearing silver sandals walks across wet concrete and stone, Trafalgar Square, London
We ended up in Trafalgar Square in the late afternoon. If I recall correctly, we were sort of between planned activities, so we just wandered around here a bit without any particular goal in mind —I think the plan was to meet up with others a bit later and head of to do something. Trafalgar is a busy place, surrounded by traffic and filled with tourists and others. This can make provide quite an opportunity for street photography, with the potential for just about anything to happen and for any sort of person to walk by.
Before long a cleaning crew showed up and went to work on a section of the square when lots of people had been congregating, using high pressure water to clean off the accumulated grime. Their method of clearing the area was fascinating. They blocked off a small section and then began spraying, gradually pushing out the boundaries, and spraying enough water to persuade those close by to move away. In the aftermath of some of this spraying, a person wearing silver sandals walked along this linear section of the square, with alternating stone, reflections, and shadows beyond.
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
Shop windows and posters along a narrow street in Heidelberg, Germany
During our 2013 visit to Germany we spent a total of about a week in Heidelberg, a city that seems to combine modernity with the old. From what we saw, the main evidence of “the old” is, literally, the old town of Heidelberg. While it is a tourist area, it is also the site of a lot of very old buildings lining narrow streets. We stayed with relatives, and were close enough that a short walk took us over a hill and across the Neckar River to the old section of the town.
I’m not sure I can explain what attracted me to this little building, crowded among other shops along a very narrow street that is mostly used as a walkway. Perhaps there is some unusual combination (as least from the perspective of my American experience) combination of orderliness and a slight edginess, but in a building that is not particularly modern. I decided to crop the image of the front of the shop closely, eliminating much of any context aside from the bit of slightly mossy sidewalk at the bottom of the frame. Everything seems very square and geometrical, though slightly aged and a bit off kilter. Although the windows are filled with posters, perhaps suggesting something of this university town, I notice that the posters are very carefully squared and centered in the windows, and even the clutter inside the building seems organized somehow.
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
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
