Tag Archives: shadows

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Chairs and Dappled Sunlight

May 22, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A small brick-paved urban square in dappled sunlight

I have my reasons for photographing in urban environments, even though that might seem like an odd passion for someone who photographs nature and landscapes. The same attractions of form and light and texture and juxtaposition are found in both places, though the urban environment encourages me to photograph in a different way. Here I don’t use a tripod, and I often make photographs very quickly and instinctively, since the subjects are so transitory and it is a matter of photograph it now or never. Even a seemingly static and quiet scene like this one only lasts a moment before people again walk through the scene. If nothing else, it is an intense exercise in seeing.

The area of where I made this photograph is, despite the appearance, a very busy and noise place along San Francisco’s Market Street, a place where there are throngs of people and where traffic noise can be oppressive. Yet at times the crowds part and the scene can be almost empty. And there is often quite beautiful light — it comes from all angles as it reflects back and forth among the glassy surfaces of tall buildings, and at street level in some places the light can fill the scene from almost all possible directions.

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

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Dunes and Mountains, Morning

May 3, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light on sand dunes and rugged mountains, Death Valley National Park

On our final morning in Death Valley this past March I got up before dawn one more time, loaded some gear in the car, and drove a short distance to a place from which I had decided I wanted to access sand dunes. I had been in the same area a few days earlier, and on that visit I spotted a likely looking area not far away — and that was my target this time as I walked alone across the quiet playa in pre-dawn light.

Out here the light arrives with surprising suddenness, despite the hints that it is coming, seen in light on peaks to the west and far up the valley. Silently the first light skims across dune tops, and within seconds the soft light is replaced by brighter highlights and darker shadows. Here I looked east across low dunes toward mountains along the eastern side of the valley at the base of the Amargosa Range. The morning haze and shadows on the mountains muted the their details. I photographed here for a few more minutes before packing and walking back to my vehicle, and within an hour we were on our way out of the park.

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

Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Dunes, Sky

April 11, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sand dunes, shadows, and morning clouds

Another photograph from another morning among the dunes. Because of the daily wind and dust storms during this visit to Death Valley National Park, we had many opportunities to find sand dunes with no or few signs of other visitors besides those creatures that actually live there. We approached the dunes in a variety of ways during this visit, and I photographed them almost daily, sometimes more than one. But I always came at them from a direction that wasn’t the most popular or best known. This time I came around on a looping route from a side and swing around behind some low, sandy areas to photograph in early morning light.

There is a lot to see in the dunes, and I had a few ideas as we arrived at the edge of the dunes. (While I usually don’t begin with a specific photograph it mind, I often have some general conceptual ideas I want to explore, and I keep my eyes open for subjects that could work along those lines.) I started with some old dry playa textures in front of the valley floor leading of toward distant mountains as the sun rose, and then I climbed some short dunes to look for interesting curving shapes and conjunctions of lines and subjects. I photographed some creosote plants against sand patterns and eventually moved deeper into the dunes, seeing the rippling textures of wind-blown sand draped across hills and valleys. I stopped to photograph a bit of sand texture straight on, and when I looked up and to the side I saw this series of curving horizontal lines with the cloudy sky above and beyond.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Salt Flats, Evening Shadows

April 9, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The evening shadows of mountains and clouds stretch across patterned salt flats.

The stark landscape of the desert is visually unique. Because there is little or no plant life (and what there is typically is sparse and small), the bare earth itself is revealed. Patterns of rock and soil and even water that would be hidden in a forested landscape are out in the open. In many cases there is little or nothing to provide a sense of visual scale — objects could be the size of baseballs or small cars and there is no way to tell. The landscape is often so large that haze and light play tricks, and cloud shadows play across the relatively plain playas and hills. Because the native colors are often subtle, any color from light (blue from shadows and warm tones in early and late light) can have a more profound effect.

Late on this day we visited the sunny side of this section of Death Valley, ascending the ramp of an immense gravel fan at the base of a canyon. The hills on this side of the valley were interesting, but looking back and across the valley very interesting patterns began to emerge. The far hills were already in the blue shadows of the oncoming evening, and the shadows of clouds raced across the nearer portions of the playa, which are here laced with their own patterns of flow channels and dried salt. Altogether these elements produced a landscape that seems more like an abstraction than a reality.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: shadows

Chairs and Dappled Sunlight

Dunes and Mountains, Morning

Dunes, Sky

Salt Flats, Evening Shadows

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