Tag Archives: san jose

Metal Wall

Metal Wall
A metal wall leads away toward a person standing in a doorway

Metal Wall. San Jose, California. June 21, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A metal wall leads away toward a person standing in a doorway

This certainly qualifies as an opportunistic photograph. We had heard that a local brewery was going to host a Fujifilm “drink and click” demo this evening. We’ve been wanting to try the place out, and the added attraction of being able to play with a whole bunch of Fujifilm cameras and lenses clinched the deal. A local camera store collaborated with Fujifilm to show up with a bunch of their x-trans camera bodies and good cross-section of their lenses. Since I already have the Fujifilm XPro2 camera, I was mostly interested in trying out lenses and the X100f rangefinder camera.

So I had the X100f for about 15 minutes, mostly inside the brewery but also just outside. I figured out the camera pretty quickly and then just made a bunch of handheld photographs, trying a range of techniques and settings to get a feel for the camera. For this image I was interested in seeing how the fixed 23mm f/2 would do with a narrow focus plane (at f/2) and what the resulting bokeh would look like. I think the camera passed the test pretty well.


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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Girls Rule

Girls Rule
Mom and daughter in pink at the San Jose Women’s March

I have posted a collection of photographs on my gallery site from events during the weekend of the 2017 Women’s March, including “Bridge Together Golden Gate” on Friday, January 20 and the San Jose Women’s March on Saturday, January 21. The nationwide — and even international — events of the Women’s Walk were, as far as I can tell, unprecedented.

My photographs that document the event will be shared in a separate gallery that I posted earlier this weekend. Among the many remarkable things I saw at the Women’s March, was a kind of torch passing between generations, from an older generation from the era of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement to their daughters and even to granddaughters. I saw groups where all three generations were represented. I photographed this mother and daughter (or so I assume) as the crowd was gathering more than an hour before a march of 25,000 people began.


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.

Women’s March Photographs

A gallery of photographs from the January 20-21, 2017 Women’s March and related events in the San Francisco Bay area. Most come from the San Jose Women’s March, which drew an estimated 25,000 participants. I will continue to add photographs to this gallery, so check back!

Click on any photograph to see a larger version, and then click again to scroll through the set of photographs.

I have more photographs and hope to post updates later on.


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.

The Way (To San Jose)

The Way (To San Jose)
San Francisco freeway entrance

The Way (To San Jose). San Francisco, California. August 14, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

San Francisco freeway entrance

OK. How to explain this photograph, especially to people who think of me as a “landscape” photographer? Let me start with the basic facts. I made the photograph on one of my regular walks in The City, which almost always start at the Caltrain station and the head off in various directions. On this morning I headed straight north towards Market Street. But “straight” doesn’t mean fast, and I mostly walked slowly and looked a lot — at things that I might not otherwise see. The light was beautiful, with the early morning sun beginning to break up the San Francisco fog and cast soft light on the urban landscape. At one point I passed this freeway on-ramp, with its obvious potential for puns based on an old popular song

Yes. I’m putting off trying to explain this photograph. I’ll just drop a few hints. First, think in terms of landscape, but “urban landscape.” There is no clear line between the landscapes of people and the landscapes of what we call the natural world, and this is just a bit closer to one end of the spectrum. Then, there is that beautiful light and the lovely Bay Area summer morning sky — the same sky that might appear in a natural landscape not more than a few miles away. And I think if you look closer you might possibly find a few little surprises in the photograph that demonstrate that perhaps there is more there than you might first think. Isn’t that a beautiful curve from lower right and up toward the sky? And how in the world is it that the street and the freeway are empty of cars on a weekday morning in downtown San Francisco. Beyond that, I’ll leave you to figure the rest of it on your own…


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.