Tag Archives: stone

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Austria, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Salzburg Cathedral

September 11, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Salzburg Cathedral, in the city of Salzburg, Austria

While we stayed in the Schönau am Königssee area of Bavaria, we were very close to the AUstrian border and to the city of Salzburg. In fact, we ended up there on parts of at least four days during our week in Bavaria. Our train arrived at and departed from Salzburg, and on two other days we found ourselves in the area for various reasons. Of course, with our music backgrounds, neither Patty nor I could pass up the opportunity to visit the birthplace of Mozart – though we managed to resist the temptations of virtually all of the Mozart-focused tourist attractions, only taking time to walk past the building where he was supposedly born and then looking at but ultimately not purchasing any of the ubiquitous mozartkugeln, including the version that is supposedly “only available in Salzburg.” On the other hand, we were unable to resist the Salzburg “coffee culture,” which we enjoyed on more than one occasion!

The spectacular Salzburg Cathedral dominates, even in a city with many spectacular things. (If you look closely, you can spot a couple of the other church spires in this photograph.) The interior is, to my eye, astonishing, and I spent a good amount of time inside just standing and staring at the structure, the decoration, and the light. I made a few photographs there, too. It turned out that just the right viewpoint for this exterior view – in more than one way – was from a hillside terrace restaurant that we visited twice, sitting outdoors and overlooking Salzburg as we had late lunch.

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: England, Photographs: Urban/Street

Brick Walls and Cobblestones

August 27, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An empty cobbled London street runs beneath an underpass and next to brick buildings and walls.

Although it is the wrong city, this might be an example of me channeling my “inner Atget.” I’m not 100% positive where I made this photograph, though I could probably figure it out precisely if I thought it was important, but I think it may have been in the area near the south bank of the Thames between the Southwark and Millennium Bridges where I did a lot of wandering on a couple of occasions.

Either because I waited until they all moved out of the frame or because I somehow managed to find a deserted spot, there are obviously no people in this image, so it works as a sort of urban landscape but also street photography. As in at least one other photograph I made in this area, I’m shooting from inside a darkened tunnel or underpass and towards a sunlit area beyond, and again the reflected light shines on the smooth cobbles of the street. To my eye, the curve of the wall and sidewalk in the dark tunnel and the light coming from the right side of the frame suggest some space and structure to the right of the image that cannot be seen.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Column, Wall, and Dying Tree

August 20, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

The brown branches of a dying tree stand against a stone wall and column, Pittock Mansion, Portland, Oregon

This might be about as unrepresentative a photograph of the Pittock Mansion as one could make. ;-) Pittock Mansion is a historic location in the hills above Portland, Oregon. If I recall the story correctly, it was built by an early leading citizen of the area who ran the newspaper (The Oregonian?) and may have had interested in the lumber business. The expansive mansion was built on a hillside above the city, with views of three of the major volcanos of northern Oregon, and on grounds that included beautiful and lush gardens. The mansion itself is large and luxurious and was, for its day, very modern.

So I went and photographed a dead tree against a stone wall. What can I say? This section of wall combines a blocky section of the wall with a cylindrical column. Not surprisingly for the Pacific Northwest, moss grows on the rock, giving it the slight green tint. I think the tree is dying – at least it looks that way – and its odd color caught my attention.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Utah

Ledge With Fallen Rocks

September 10, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Red cliffs and rocks on a ledge at Park Avenue, Arches National Park.

I made this photograph fairly early in the morning at the Park Avenue area of Arches National Park. While morning might was hitting the walls behind my camera position, the walls in front of me were still in fairly deep shade. However, as the sun rose, its light began to come over the tops of these tall sandstone walls and spill down into the canyon. As the morning wore on, the light/shadow line began to move back closer to this wall, first illuminating the ledge and the fallen rocks in holds and then beginning to highlight edges of some of the cracks in the wall itself.

The Park Avenue area seems like one of the most accessible areas of this park being only a short distance inside the park boundaries and being very close to the roadway. The area is essentially a canyon between two nearly parallel walls of sandstone, often topped with remarkable towers and other features as the canyon descends toward where it opens up into sage brush country below. At this particular hour of this particular morning, as wonderful as that scene was, the light shooting down the canyon was only so-so, so I looked around, put on a long lens, and photographed smaller vignettes of the landscape such as this one.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: stone

Salzburg Cathedral

Brick Walls and Cobblestones

Column, Wall, and Dying Tree

Ledge With Fallen Rocks

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