Tag Archives: shadows

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Napping Man on Bench

July 10, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A man taking a nap on a sunny bench in Manhattan

This is the second of a pair of photographs featuring this red wall near Washington Square in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan. If my memory is correct, the building is part of the NYU campus. We were passing that way on a walk in the uptown direction from our hotel, and soon after I made this photograph we spent a good chunk of time enjoying the Sunday morning ambiance of the park, where (no surprise!) lots of stuff was going on: a piano performance, a couple of jazz groups, people exercising, folks reading the Sunday paper, “pigeon man” (a story for later), and much more.

New York City is a pretty warm place this time of year. (I can hear New Yorkers exclaiming, “Duh!” right about now.) Lots of people, including me, and find it enervating, especially when the humidity is high. As it usually is. Looking now at this photograph (which I made almost as much for its geometry, light, and color as for its human subject), I can feel that heat and humidity and relate personally to the urge to simply fall asleep for a moment on such a bench!

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

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Mono Basin

June 9, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Desert hills, Mono Lake, Paoha Island, and the Mono Basin in morning light

When people think of Mono Lake they often seen to think first of the unusual tufa tower formations found along portions of its shoreline — and the subject of many photographs from the place. The towers are indeed impressive and unusual, and especially in the right light they can produce an almost other-worldly impression. But there is much more to be seen here.

My strongest associations with the lake do not involve tufa towers. Instead the strongest may simply be an impression of the vast space of the basin holding this giant lake, and the immense expanse of sky above — often pure blue and clear, but at times opaque with haze or broken by thunder clouds. There are sonic associations, and the strongest may be the sound of gulls and other birds, especially on a quiet and windless morning. On the morning when I made this photograph I was not at the “usual places” at dawn, but I passed by just a bit later, when the sun was a bit higher but the light was still spreading mostly sideways across the landscape, producing large and dark shadows.

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

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

Oaks, Trail, Spring

March 15, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Old oak trees along a Northern California trail through spring grasslands

When people think of the landscape of California, many think of impressive and famous subjects: the redwoods, the Pacific Ocean coast, the High Sierra, perhaps the deserts. But those of us who live here know that one of the most characteristics is that of the oak grasslands. The sprawl along the low hills found all over the state and manage to climb up into mountains in many places — on both sides of the Central Valley, along the coastal hills, and more.

This tree and I go back perhaps twenty years, to when I first “discovered” this park just south of the main population centers of the San Francisco Bay Area. The specific location isn’t really important to anyone else, since you can find similar landscapes in many other places. But this tree is special to me. It sits along a trail that I have hiked many times, a steep but short one that takes me to the top of a bare hill and then down into a valley from which more distant trails branch out. I’ve photographed this sprawling oak throughout the year — summer, fall, winter and spring, in rain and fog and heat. This time I photographed on a late-winter California day that, as they sometimes do, felt more like spring.

Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Shop Window, Shadows

March 9, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Afternoon sun casts shadows on display in a shop window

We headed to Southern California just after the New Year. It was an excuse to take the Pacific Coast Highway down the California coast — we were fortunate to do this before winter storms forced a long-term closure! — and to visit various family members. Between the scheduled events we wandered a bit and visited whatever nearby thing seemed interesting.

We spent this afternoon wandering downtown Pasadena. It was a fairly lazy day — we had the afternoon pretty much free, with nothing on the calendar but an evening get-together. I made this photograph as the low-angle afternoon winter light slanted across the street and through the windows of this store to produce complex patterns of reflections, text, and the store’s interior.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: shadows

Napping Man on Bench

Mono Basin

Oaks, Trail, Spring

Shop Window, Shadows

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