Tag Archives: stand

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pandemia, Photographs: Urban/Street

Shuttered

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Shuttered
A snack vending stand, shuttered for the pandemic.

Shuttered. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A snack vending stand, shuttered for the pandemic.

This is one from the “Postcards from Pandemia” series of photographs that I occasionally make while out walking through and around my semi-locked-down world. The subject here is a building that I pass regularly as I walk through a nearby park. Typically this would be the busy snack bar for the local Little League fields, with parents working inside and kids and families lined up outside to buy candy, sodas, and other snacks. (Gummy Worms, anyone?)

But not this year. I still see the occasional small group of kids with a parent or two playing catch or practicing batting, but no games and no crowds. It is a bit less so now than it was back in late-March and early April when the world shut down around here. At that point I could walk and see virtually no one — I often just walked in the streets since there was no traffic.

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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Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Great Egret, Morning Light

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Great Egret, Morning Light
A great egret in California’s Central Valley

Great Egret, Morning Light. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A great egret in California’s Central Valley.

Way back when I was a college student I first “discovered” egrets. I was in a general education science course that consisted of a sequence of short seminars on various subjects, and the professor teaching one on ecology was obviously an egret fanatic. I don’t recall many specifics from the course, but I recall his passion for “snowy egrets.” Later on, as a dedicated cyclist, I often rode past creeks and canals in the Bay Area where I spotted great egrets (not the same critter as the snowy egret), often simply resting but sometimes in flight. At that time I regarded them as exotic birds, since they were still new to me.

Of course, I eventually learned that they are all over California, wherever there are wetlands — from the Pacific shoreline to the Central Valley. As I learned more about other birds — cranes, geese, herons, ibises — I came to regard the egret as a much less exotic bird. Yet, there is nothing quite like the flight of a great egret, with that long neck, the pure white plumage, and the gigantic wingspan. This one managed to stay put on the ground long enough for me to take its picture on a recent, first-of-the-season bird photography foray into the Central Valley.

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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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Market, Panzano in Chianti

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Market, Panzano in Chianti
Shoppers at a produce stand at the market in Panzano in Chianti

Market, Panzano in Chianti. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Shoppers at a produce stand at the market in Panzano in Chianti.

This is one of will be several basic travel photographs — photographs that simply capture a place, including its qualities and perhaps its people, though my eyes as I visited. I made this photograph at a market in the Italian town of Panzano in Chianti, where we just happened to pass through on market day.

There are lots of wonderful things about traveling outside of the USA. (I just wish I had started earlier!) While you do become aware of differences — and partly by that means perhaps better understand your own culture and its place in the world — there are so many things that are largely the same in places that seem widely separated. Certainly this market shares a lot in common with those in my own state of California. (After working on this photograph I was out for a rural walk around here earlier this week… and it struck my just how much this area I was walking through evoked the memories of Tuscany.)

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Great Blue Heron

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Great Blue Heron
A great blue heron standing in a winter pasture

Great Blue Heron. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A great blue heron standing in a winter pasture.

Great Blue Herons are soloists — I virtually never seem them in groups, with only one strange exception. Both herons and egrets are closely related, and I recall being surprised a few years ago to encounter bird pairs consisting of a great blue heron and a great egret. I particularly remember watching one such pair land and then fly off together.

But this one was definitely alone. Earlier in the season I had seen few great blue herons, but by this point I was beginning to spot more of them, and I had already encountered several on the day I photographed this one — including one memorable critter that flew back and forth in front of me several times, gliding above a shallow bond. The bird in the photograph stood alone in a large pasture that was beginning to green up after winter rains. Up close they are remarkable birds, and their attentiveness to surroundings becomes apparent.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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