Tag Archives: stone

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Man in the Window

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Man in the Window - Reflections in the windows of a financial district building, San Francisco, California
Reflections in the windows of a financial district building, San Francisco, California

Man in the Window. San Francisco, California. January 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Reflections in the windows of a financial district building, San Francisco, California.

I’m fascinated by the reflections in and among the windows of urban buildings, especially those whose surfaces are primarily glass. It often seems when I look at them that the building barely has a real surface at all, and instead most of what I see when I look is the often distorted reflections of other surrounding buildings and signs and perhaps some sky or clouds. So when I walk in San Francisco with my camera I’m often looking up, not so much to simply photograph the buildings but also to watch for these transitory conjunctions of reflections

I made this photograph while walking a narrow street in San Francisco’s financial district late in the day as fog was softening the early evening light. I was momentarily almost shocked to see the face of this man who, divorced from the full context of the sign on which he appeared, looking like huge and intense figure in the windows of this building. And aside from the two horizontal ledges and the thin structures between the window panes, everything else in the image is also a reflection of the surfaces of buildings around and behind me.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Looking In

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Looking In - Almost everyone in a group of people looks into a conservatory courtyard while waiting for it to open.
Almost everyone in a group of people looks into a conservatory courtyard while waiting for it to open.

Looking In. San Francisco, California. August 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Almost everyone in a group of people looks into a conservatory courtyard while waiting for it to open.

Apologies for this title, but I did not get the name of the building (perhaps today I’ll do that), “A group of people looking into a courtyard with one guy looking the other way” seemed a bit too long, and I ran out of creativity before posting. I suppose there is the potential here for incorporating some quip about San Francisco “summer” weather as well – on this lovely “summer” afternoon there were high clouds and fog and it was trying to rain! :-)

I had another afternoon to kill wandering around San Francisco yesterday afternoon. My general target was something like street photography, though it also incorporated this little project I have to photograph downtown buildings from odd angles and render the images in black and white. I had been working on the latter and was heading back to where I would have dinner (and running a few minutes late) when I saw this little cluster of people crowded around what looked like the entrance to this glassed in courtyard filled with palm trees and some tables. Any sort of odd little scene like this – quite different from the general rush of people in the downtown area – catches my eye and often seems like it might make a photograph. Here I had the group of people crowded together to work with, along with the classical architecture of the building and courtyard. So I did what I often might do with such a scene: I stopped and quickly made one initial photograph so as not to miss it entirely, and then I remained and watched for something interesting or out-of-place to occur. When the fellow at the right separated himself from the larger group, my first reaction was a bit of frustration that he had broken up the group of people facing away, but in the end he makes the photograph more interesting to me than it would have been otherwise.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Seaweed and Sandstone, Weston Beach

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Seaweed and Sandstone, Weston Beach - A twisted piece of seaweed tossed onto sandstone rocks at Weston Beach, Point Lobos State Reserve.
A twisted piece of seaweed tossed onto sandstone rocks at Weston Beach, Point Lobos State Reserve.

Seaweed and Sandstone, Weston Beach. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. July 16, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A twisted piece of seaweed tossed onto sandstone rocks at Weston Beach, Point Lobos State Reserve.

Bits of sea life-like this illustrate one of the great reasons to walk slowly and carefully along the shoreline with eyes wide open. I photographed this section of dried seaweed just as I found it, lying on this stratified bit of sandstone on Weston Beach at Point Lobos. It is hard to imagine how a plant that, I presume, might have been fairly straight underwater, ended up in such a wonderfully twisted shape and to sit on this bit of rock with its own shallow curve.

I was a bit surprised to find this and some similar nearby examples on this beach. I’m used to coming here in the high-wave months of winter, when storm surf can cast all sorts of interesting things far up on the beaches and beyond the usual high-water line. But at this time of year the surf is often a lot calmer, as it was on this day, and I don’t expect to see nearly as much “stuff” washed up.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Fractured Sandstone Cliff, Plants

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Fractured Sandstone Cliff, Plants - Plants grow among craks of a fractured sandstone cliff, Zion National Park
Plants grow among cracks of a fractured sandstone cliff, Zion National Park

Fractured Sandstone Cliff, Plants. Zion National Park, Utah. April 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Plants grow among cracks of a fractured sandstone cliff, Zion National Park.

On my first morning in Zion (we had arrived there the previous afternoon) we headed up into the park and Zion Canyon, though which the Virgin River flows. Although I was more or less not looking for icons to photograph, I had stopped along the way to photograph that icon, the view of the Watchman from the bridge on the Mt. Carmel highway. (At least I could console myself that I was not shooting it at the usual sunset time, but instead in the early morning. ;-) After a brief stop for that purpose, I headed up the canyon with a plan of visiting the Weeping Rocks and seeing what sort of photographs might be possible there.

After a short walk up to the rocks, I figured out that it wasn’t going to quite be my photographic “cup of tea.” However, along this walk I did find some other interesting subjects. One that I’ve shared previously was a very close view of some brand new spring leaves on the trees that grow along the trail. Another subject was the nearby sandstone cliffs that here come down close to the level of the trail. One area nearby featured immense vertical blocks of the striking red sandstone, with interesting crack systems and some plants growing in the cracks. I made several exposures of this area in full shade, and this vertical composition is one that I like a lot. I’ve probably said this before and I’ll no doubt mention it again, but for a guy who is so used to shooting the equally impressive but much less colorful granite of the Sierra, the colors of these rocks proved irresistible! And the color variations are amazing – here you can see some areas where the color trends toward purple.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.