Tag Archives: shadows

Photographs: Austria, Photographs: Urban/Street

Woman with Umbrella, Salzburg Street

May 21, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A Salzburg, Austria street scene including a woman with an umbrella

This is one of those photographs that you could see in any number of ways, I think. It is a narrow street in Salzburg, Austria, not far from the main square and the Salzburg Cathedral and perhaps right in front of the building that is described as the birthplace of Mozart. (Somehow the juxtaposition of a shopping district with that place seems just a bit jarring.) You could regard it as an almost random scene from this street, though I think there is a bit more going on.

One of the things I like about street photography is working quickly and spontaneously, reacting quickly to people, events, and juxtapositions that may last only for a brief moment. If I recall correctly, I perhaps began simply by thinking “there is a shot here somewhere, with all these people on this narrow street.” Then things began to coalesce a bit when I noticed the bright backlight streaming almost directly down the street and stretching long shadows toward me. Then I saw the woman with the dark umbrella — and who can resist a photograph of umbrellas!? As she walked past I quickly made a brief series of photographs, trying to instantly place her and her shadow in some kind of compositional relationship with people and objects in the scene. From this series, this one has her standing slightly apart from others and with her shadow stretching toward the lower part of the frame, and a similar shadow from another woman almost parallels it. The people at front right were in shadow (yes, some work in post makes them more visible) but I felt like they provided some balance to the brightness on the left side of the frame and, to me at least, there is something a bit odd and interesting about their intense gaze at something behind me. Looking closer at the people in the scene — closer than I could consciously look when I pressed the shutter release — I find the dark figure on the right margin interesting, and as the people stretch into the distance several of them seem to have stories to tell, too.

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

Dunes and Mountains, Evening Shadows

April 15, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening light on sand dunes, Death Valley National Park

I can photograph dunes at any time of day, but for me the evening hours are the most interesting. The scene goes through a sequence of transformations that fascinate me, even on evenings when I wonder if the magic will be there. IN Death Valley, during all but the coolest times of the year, the dunes can be hot places with stark light and washed out colors in the late afternoon — yet even this kind of scene has photographic potential. But soon the sun drops toward the horizon, the color of the light warms, and the shadows lengthen, revealing the textures of the dunes that are hidden in brighter light. As the sun sets the show continues but transforms again as the light takes on a blue tint (from open sky) and fills the shadows, now revealing colors that are not seen in the daylight.

This whole transition occurs relatively quickly, perhaps over the course of an hour and a half or less, and I often feel like I have to work somewhat quickly. This photograph comes from a point in time when direct sun was still on the dunes, though it was muted by haze from earlier sand storms on this evening. The light catches the higher parts of the dunes and gives them a warm color, but the lower areas have already fallen into shadow and have taken on the blue tones of light from the open sky.

Photographs: Urban/Street

Saint Ansel of the Donut Shop

March 29, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sunlit donut shop interior with semi-concealed photograph

This photograph comes from a memorable little photo excursion… that started at my front door. Some years ago (wow, has it been five years!?) I decided on Christmas Eve day to go out for a walk with my camera. It was an afternoon of interesting light, and it seemed like something to do. As I walked through the familiar neighborhood several things surprised me. As I recall, the long winter shadows of trees were appearing on buildings everywhere I looked and they became a subject. And I also saw things in this neighborhood that I thought I knew so well — I’ve lived here for decades — that I simply had not noticed before.

There is something about having a camera in hand that changes the way I see. Usually it is all too easy to see “casually” without really considering or even really noticing what is right there. For example, I distinctly noticing for the first time the fronts of the upper stories of buildings in the small downtown business area. I had no doubt walked that street hundreds of times before without paying any conscious attention to them. As I walked past this little donut shop, beautiful late-afternoon light flooded its interior. Again, though I had been inside many times (yum! donuts!) this was the first time that I noticed the old Ansel Adams reproduction on the wall. (There is an earlier version of this photograph in black and white.)

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Bleached Plant, Sandstone, Shadows

March 19, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The skeleton of a bleached plant casts shadows across a sandstone slab

In the fall I spent some time making photographs in Utah, getting to a good number of locations, including some I returned to for more photography following previous visits. Partway through this trip I had plans to rendezvous with a group of friends (some new and some old) and photographers in a somewhat remote part of the state. We met, headed out, and spent the next few days camped “out there,” making photographs every day and visiting some very beautiful places.

On the first day of my meeting with this group we found a place to camp and began to settle in. That process took place pretty quickly, as all of us have spent a lot of time camping and we don’t need a lot of luxuries — in addition to friends we need food, a campfire, a place to sleep, and a spot by the fire for our chairs. So I soon found myself with a few hours of late afternoon free time between the camp chores and our evening shoot. I wandered off into nearby hills and eventually ended up on a sandstone bench with a bit of a view of the surrounding terrain. On top of this flat, dry, and nearly lifeless spot there were several plants that had tried to make a living here, setting down roots in tiny pockets of sandy soil and then growing horizontally across the rock. The first thing that attracted me was the stark contrast between the bleached plant and the red rock sandstone, but (as is always the case) the more I looked the more I saw. The curve of the white branch at the right edge of the frame is echoed by the similar upward curve of the eroded bit of darker rock on the left side, and a darker parallel version of the plant falls on the rock in the form of a shadow.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: shadows

Woman with Umbrella, Salzburg Street

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Dunes and Mountains, Evening Shadows

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Saint Ansel of the Donut Shop

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Bleached Plant, Sandstone, Shadows

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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.

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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.