Tag Archives: stone

Photographs: Austria, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Salzburg Sisters

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Salzburg Sisters
“Salzburg Sisters ” — Two women walking down a cobbled Salzburg street.

There’s a part of me that is tempted to jump over the large number of travel and street photography images that I’m coming across as I traverse my old raw file archive… and move to some of the more familiar scenes from the natural world. But I’m going to continue to (mostly) resist that temptation and double down on these subject a bit longer, at least until I make it through this archive of images from a multi-week European trip back in 2013.

We stayed in Bavaria with family for about a week, just across the border from Salzburg, which we visited on several occasions during our stay. I love narrow streets and figures that quickly appear and disappear, challenging my ability to quickly see and create a photograph. As these women walked ahead of us I had just enough time to bring the camera up to my eye and make three quick exposures as they headed into a very narrow cobbled street.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: England, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Windows, Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great

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Windows, Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great
Afternoon light enters through windows at the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, London

Windows, Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Afternoon light enters through windows at the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, London

This photograph comes from the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great (what a wonderful name!) in London, photographed on a visit there way back in 2013. As we often do when traveling in places like this, we came upon this subject essentially by accident. We were walking in the vicinity because we had come to look at something else, paused to eat lunch in a pub, then headed outside with no particular goal in mind, saw an interesting doorway down a street, and went in. “Discovering” things by accident seems to be a theme of my approach to travel.

There are a few other things connected to this photograph. First, it is (obvious from the date of the exposure) another of the lost-but-found photographs uncovered from my old raw files as I work my way through them as a pandemic project. Because of a project that some folks are working on, it is also one that features glass as a subject. Finally, the process of working through the old files has reminded me again that “making” a photograph is very much not an act of clicking shutter buttons. It begins with seeing, then to “capture,” but what happens between that and the existence of a final photograph can be a very long and convoluted process.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Marbled Canyon Wall

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Marbled stone in a Death Valley canyon wall.

Marbled Canyon Wall. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Marbled stone in a Death Valley canyon wall.

This little section of canyon wall is one that I’ve marveled (marbled?) at for years, stopping there every time I visit this canyon and pondering how to photograph it. Although I find the patterns (and what they imply about the geology of this place) to be remarkable, it isn’t each to find a way to photograph them the way I want. On this visit the canyon was quite dark and the light filtering down from above was soft and blue-toned.

I am about as far from being a trained geologist as one can be. I have never taken a single course in the subject, though I have read a bit. Nonetheless, I always marvel at the record of time and geological forces that created a little spot like this. Some material was, I presume, laid down “here” over a long period of time. Additional time allowed for it to transform into rock. As geological forces on various scales did their work, cracks appeared that permitted the entrance of entirely different material to create what we see as veins — but which are perhaps better thought of as layers. Eventually the force of water (and perhaps a weakness in the structure of the rock?) exposed this rock to the light. And then I arrived to photograph it…

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.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Tree, Lake, Granite Bench

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Tree, Lake, Granite Bench
A solitary tree grows along the shoreline of an alpine lake below Sierra Nevada granite benches

Tree, Lake, Granite Bench. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A solitary tree grows along the shoreline of an alpine lake below Sierra Nevada granite benches.

This is another “quiet light” photograph, made during the “edge of the day” times when the light is muted and soft, when the glow of light on nearby rocks gently enters the scene. During these hours, especially in the morning, the air is still and cool, the reflective surface of water is unbroken, and the world is a quiet place.

I made this photograph very near to our weeklong backcountry base camp, in a high, rocky spot nestled in the curving shore of an 11,000′ lake in a valley full of meadows, boulders, and running water. The high valley was surrounded by even higher peaks, and every morning before the sun rose above those ridges we have and hour of more of this light.

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.