Tag Archives: sun

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

Vacant Retail Space

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Vacant Retail Space - An empty retail space after being vacated by a departing tenant.
Vacant Retail Space - An empty retail space after being vacated by a departing tenant.

Vacant Retail Space. San Jose, California. December 28, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An empty retail space after being vacated by a departing tenant.

Switching gears from the natural to the constructed, this is a photograph of a large and very vacant retail space in San Jose, California – shot on a late-December walk in a part of the city not far from where I live. This was once the location of a very busy and popular retail establishment that got caught  by the current economic problems and some changes in technology that put their business model at risk. Only a very few hints of the nature of the original business remain at this point. The facility has now been vacant for several months, and despite new construction nearby it does not yet show any sign of new occupants coming in.

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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Death Valley and Trail Canyon, Morning

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Death Valley and Trail Canyon, Morning -Dawn light comes over the Black Mountains to illuminate Death Valley and Trail Canyon at the base of the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park.
Dawn light comes over the Black Mountains to illuminate Death Valley and Trail Canyon at the base of the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park.

Death Valley and Trail Canyon, Morning. Death Valley National Park, California. January 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dawn light comes over the Black Mountains to illuminate Death Valley and Trail Canyon at the base of the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park.

Sometimes I don’t know at the time of exposure whether or not a photograph might end up as a color or a black and white image. However, I saw this scene as being black white as I made the photograph. It was made just a bit later than a photograph of a similar scene that I posted recently, and by this time the intense dawn color was gone and replaces by more subdued tones and far less saturated color. However, by now the early sun light was beginning to directly strike the lower slopes of the foreground canyon.

The large canyon in the foreground at the base of the two dark ridges is part of a complex sometimes called Trail Canyon. At one time there was a road up the canyon to the area near where I made the photograph – from what I hear it provided access to a mine down in the canyon. Some years ago the road washed out in several places, and the park’s policy now is to mostly let these old tracks simply slide into oblivion, thus allowing the terrain to revert to wilderness. This canyon, like many along the lower reaches of the major mountain ranges of the park, intrigues me with its huge gravel fan and in the way that it breaches the incredibly rugged mountains of the Panamint Range.

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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Panamint Range to the Amargosa Range, Dawn

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Panamint Range to the Amargosa Range, Dawn - Dawn light on the Amargosa Range and lower ridges of the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park.
Dawn light on the Amargosa Range and lower ridges of the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park.

Panamint Range to the Amargosa Range, Dawn. Death Valley National Park, California. January 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dawn light on the Amargosa Range and lower ridges of the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park.

This is another photograph from an early morning winter venture high into the Panamint Range in Death Valley National Park during the first week of the year. While the desert can be a rather drab place during most of the day, in the right conditions the colors can be nearly psychedelic for a few moments near the ends of the day – and this was one of those mornings for sure.

While many might wish for perfect, clear, haze-free atmosphere, it was the presence of some rather hazy conditions that created the wild atmospheric conditions as the sun came up on this morning. Light simply passed through clear air, but it illuminates hazy air and can make it glow. At this moment the sun had just risen and the light was nearly horizontal as it passed across the immense gulf of Death Valley to light the nearby lower ridge of the Panamint Range and the much more distant upper peaks of the Amargosa Range.

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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Trees and Granite Bowl

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Trees and Granite Bowl
Trees and Granite Bowl

Trees and Granite Bowl. Yosemite National Park, California. September 15, 20110. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A variety of trees grow on a shallow layer of sandy soil in the middle of a large granite bowl, Yosemite National Park.

While the small, stunted and contorted trees that grow in impossibly small and barren cracks in the granite are amazing examples of how life can thrive with minimal support and against all odds, in some ways these groves of larger trees are at least as surprising. This group includes some very large and old specimens, yet they are growing in what cannot be much more than a foot or so of sandy soil washed down the surface of this glaciated granite slab – which elsewhere within its area supports nothing this extensive. In what must be the lowest part of the descending surface of the bowl, where perhaps more moisture is found and more sand and gravel transported, this “soil” – largely sand mixed with rocks and boulders – has collected and somehow these trees have managed to put down roots that allow them to grow and fill out a small grove.

I made the photograph in the very late afternoon as the sun was heading toward real evening light. The light is coming in at a low angle from the left and is just beginning to take on the warm coloration of evening. Because it was partly cloudy, I waited until the shadow from a thin cloud muted the light on the granite surface of the bowl in the background.

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.