Tag Archives: travel

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: People In Landscape, Photographs: Southern California

Two Hikers, Titus Canyon

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Two Hikers, Titus Canyon
Two hikers descending the narrows of Titus Canyon

Two Hikers, Titus Canyon. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two hikers descending the narrows of Titus Canyon.

Earlier this month I visited Death Valley National Park for a few days. I go there and photograph at least once each year — I’ve been visiting for a couple of decades and photographing the place seriously for about fifteen years. I often point out that there are few places where the effects of water are more obvious than in this unlikely location. Almost all features of the park are formed or sculpted by water, and these effects are very visible in the early bare desert landscape. I arrived only a day after extremely heavy rains, and the evidence was everywhere — flooded sections of roadway, wet and muddy washes, dunes that were still damp, large shallow lakes on playas.

Many park roads were closes, including the long dirt road through Titus Canyon. The road starts high in Amargosa Canyon, crosses the mountains, descends toward the Valley, and near the end passes through a section of very narrow canyon. Normally there is enough traffic there to interrupt the reverie of hikers, but the road was closed to vehicle traffic and we (some members of my family) and I enjoyed a long and quiet hike up the canyon. Here two hikers (my sister and her husband) are descending though one of the deeper and narrower sections of the canyon.

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: Germany, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Behind The Wall

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Behind The Wall
The “backside” of the Berlin Wall at the East Side Gallery

Behind The Wall. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The “backside” of the Berlin Wall at the East Side Gallery.

A possible alternative title for this photograph could be “Back Side Gallery.” Get it? OK, I’ll explain. The wall is The Wall, a remnant of the old Berlin Wall. This section is now known as the East Side Gallery, and on the other side (the “front side”) it features a wonderful array of street art that memorializes and comments on the Wall, its history, and a range of related subjects.

The East Side Gallery is, among many other things (most of which are likely more significant than what I’m about to write) a powerful example of how art claims out attention and can, at least temporarily, distract our vision from the mundane. The location of this section of the wall is unremarkable. One one side (where most probably don’t look) is this empty field, a plain wall covered with graffiti, and not much else. On the other side, as you stand looking at the “Gallery” portion, behind you is a busy roadway and an area filled with architecture that is not exactly eye-catching. But if you stop and take in the street-art side of the wall and the impromptu street theater produced by visitors, all of the rest of that temporarily disappears.

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: Architecture, Photographs: Germany, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Green Building, Berlin

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Green Building, Berlin
A street scene in Berlin with a green building

Green Building, Berlin. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A street scene in Berlin with a green building.

Since I’m not an expert in architecture I probably don’t have the correct description terms at my fingertips, but this area of Berlin that lies just on the “East German” side of the old Berlin wall still seems to be characterized by what I’ve heard described as Soviet-Style architecture… but with a few interesting exceptions. Many of the large buildings here have, at least to my eye, that functional, modern, practical look of the 1950s and 196 0s — a kind of modernism that no longer looks all that modern

This green structure — whose purpose I did not investigate — is striking against this background and in this location literally across the street from The Wall. It appears to have been conglomerated from shipping containers, creating an ad hoc and temporary quality. (It isn’t the only example of such things I saw in Europe and the UK.) It sits at an odd angle, out of sync with both the surrounding grid of roadways and the backdrop of more “square” buildings. And that color!

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: Germany, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Woman At The Wall

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Woman At The Wall
A woman at the Berlin Wall, East Side Gallery

Woman At The Wall. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A woman at the Berlin Wall, East Side Gallery.

We were in Berlin for a few days last summer, as one stop on our 40-day sojourn through (mostly) Europe. Our routine is mostly to travel light — carryon only — and to walk a lot in every city we visit. In fact, once we arrive in a city, with few exceptions we either walk or occasionally take public transit to get where we want to go. In Berlin it was entirely a matter of walking.

On this day our walking loop took us past the East Side Gallery which, despite the name, is one of the few remaining sections of the old Berlin Wall. It became a sort of outdoor gallery when artists took over sections of the wall and created a wild display of street art. I wanted to photograph some of the work, but I didn’t want to just come back with photographs of someone else’s art so I decided to look for coincidences and juxtapositions between the images on the wall and the people who passed by.

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.