Tag Archives: snow

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Snow, Ridgewood

January 15, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A snowy morning in the Ridgewood area of Queens, New York

For years, at least since our sons started moving there, we have visited New York City. People who know the place will likely note that we must be nuts for scheduling most visit for near the end of December or, wait for it, in August. (If you have been to New York City in August, you understand how unwise it is to go there once that time of year, and how crazy it is to voluntarily repeat the original blunder. ;-) Truth be told, while August still isn’t impressing us as a wonderful time to go, we actually do like going during the winter. The cold seems like a welcome change for these San Francisco Bay Area Californians, and there is quite a lot to see there at this time of year.

However, we usually miss out on snow, the one factor that would really make it feel like the winter we don’t experience at home. We have been snowed on there during our end-of-year visits, but typically no more than a trace, if that. I’m told that real snow is likely to arrive a few weeks later. This year we got our wish, as it were. We had a full week of terribly cold conditions, and on our last day there it finally did snow — not a lot, but enough. I made this photograph as we left an elevated subway (I know, oxymoron!) in the Ridgewood area, where we were able to look out over the urban environment and see snow-topped roofs fading into the distance.

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: People, Photographs: Urban/Street

At The Door

January 8, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Patricia Emerson Mitchell opens the door to a snowy Lower Manhattan street scene

We frequently visit New York at about this time of year. Our sons and their wives live in the area and we can often open up about a week of travel time. It is a fine time to visit — there is a lot of holiday stuff to see, if that is your interest, and it seems like the subways are a bit less crowded during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Plus, by comparison to our mid-summer visits, the potentially cold weather actually seems attractive… and a welcome change from “California winter,” with its 50-60 degree temperatures. But the timing of these visits often has us there just a bit too early for snow.

This year was different. Shortly after we arrived the weather turned cold — extremely cold by our California standards — with daytime temperatures barely (and not always) making it into the lower 20 degree range. We persisted, however, and did a lot of walking all over Manhattan, always carrying cameras and making photographs. For most of the week we saw weather forecasts predicting a chance of snow on the last two days of the visit, but those forecasts gradually reverted to merely “cloudy.” So we were pleasantly surprised when we opened the hotel blinds on our final morning and saw snow falling! We headed out, mainly to find breakfast and coffee, and enjoyed the transformed landscape. As you look at this photograph, try to also imagine that moment when you move between the snowy, cold, and windy street and the warm, inviting space of a restaurant, coffee shop, or the home of friends/family.

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

Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Geese, Tule Fog, Autumn Trees

December 6, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Migratory snow geese and Ross’s geese in a pond on a foggy San Joaquin Valley morning

Since it was December 1, it seemed like time to start my annual series of visits to California’s Great Central Valley to photograph migratory birds and the landscape of the place. (Actually, I had made one preliminary and very quick visit about a month earlier, but too early for the birds shown in this photograph.) There is a ritual about these visits which, for me, are typically one-day affairs that start very early and end rather late, with a fair amount of driving involved. Up well before dawn, I drive a couple of hours in darkness and often fog, arriving perhaps a half hour before dawn to the stirring sound of many thousands of birds, already awake at morning twilight. I photograph intensively for at least a few hours before taking, at last on most days, a midday break. By mid-afternoon I’m back at work again, photographing through the peak of the visual crescendo just before sunset and then continuing for perhaps another half hour or so until the light is gone. I pack, get into my vehicle, and retrace my two-hour drive back home. (At least the shorter daylight hours of this season allow me to get up a little bit “later” — if you consider 3:45 or 4:00 AM later — and return home in time for a late dinner.)

On this first day of December it was incredibly foggy when I arrived — so much so that it was really hard to make photographs. I usually enjoy photographing in the fog, but this was so thick that almost no sunrise light managed to color the gloom. But before long the light began to come through the fog and eventually I found a moderately large group of white geese settled in on a pond. Among them I saw Ross’s and snow geese, and beyond them there were trees with fall foliage.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Autumn Snow, Last Light On Granite

November 3, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Last evening light on glaciated granite dusted by autumn snow.

The path to this photograph was a long and convoluted one, and it was certainly not what I was planning on when my day began. I had arrived in the Yosemite area the prior morning, planning to photograph autumn subjects in The Valley before heading over to Oakhurst for the opening reception for the final run of last year’s Yosemite Renaissance Exhibit. I arrived in Yosemite Valley to find it filled with smoke (and a surprising number of October visitors), but I found subjects that could work in this conditions and set about photographing. This is the time for fall color in The Valley, with lots of beautiful leaves on big leaf maple, dogwood, oak and other trees. In the evening I went over to Oakhurst in time to enjoy the reception, where I had an opportunity to see the 2017 version of the show one last time with friends and fellow artists.

I was up well before dawn the next morning with a general plan of heading to Glacier Point for sunrise. However, a beautiful, forested valley full of dogwood and other fall color intervened, and by the time I finished there it was clear that I wasn’t going to make my goal by dawn or even close to it. I did go on up to near Glacier Point, where I photographed wildfire smoke before deciding to go back to The Valley and photograph more trees. I did so, and I had some successes, but by mid-afternoon the crowds and smoke were becoming oppressive, to I decided to make what might be my final trip of the season up to Tioga Pass. Without stopping to photograph, I made it to the pass in the late afternoon. I soon started back down to begin my long drive back to the Bay Area. As I passed the closed-for-the-winter Tuolumne store I saw a familiar van and some tripods standing nearby, so I quickly stopped to see that a couple of friends were there. We talked for a long time — longer than I expected — but I finally tore myself away with little more than a half hour of daylight left. I started west, not sure if I would stop to photograph, but I soon saw that it was going to be a beautiful evening. The smoke was gone up here, the air was clear, and the warm colors of evening were on the peaks. I quickly stopped at a familiar place, but pointed my lens at a less-familiar subject — a series of retreating granite ridges marked by new snow and lit by the final light of the evening.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: snow

Snow, Ridgewood

At The Door

Geese, Tule Fog, Autumn Trees

Autumn Snow, Last Light On Granite

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