Tag Archives: trees

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Museum Windows, Central Park

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Museum Windows, Central Park
Visitors sit in a Metropolitan Museum window overlooking Central Park, Manhattan

Museum Windows, Central Park. New York City. December 26, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Visitors sit in a Metropolitan Museum window overlooking Central Park, Manhattan

At the end of 2017 we spent a week in New York City, mostly visiting our “kids,” but also visiting the city itself. It was a very cold week! Daytime temperatures stayed below freezing — sometimes way below — for five days straight, and nighttime temperatures were in the low teens. On a warm day in New York, it is great to be outside. On winter days like these it is also great to be outdoors in Manhattan… just not for very long! On this day we eventually joined the throngs headed to warm museums, picking the Met, where there is a big David Hockney exhibit that I wanted to see.

I photograph in New York often enough to begin to understand the place a little bit — though nowhere near to the level of those who live there. But I still have plenty to discover, and on this trip I discovered — realized, more accurately — in a conscious way how good the light can be there. This is especially so, I think, in winter. The sun is low in the sky and its light often comes in a low angles, reflecting and silhouetting, and frequently appearing right in my frame of view. I made this photograph quickly while walking through a hallway at the museum where groups of people were taking a break on the ledge of these windows, against the bright backdrop of a soft-focus view of Central Park trees and a bit of the Manhattan skyline.

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: Night, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Path Above San Francisco

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Path Above San Francisco
A person walks on a path through a grove above the night lights of San Francisco

© Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A person walks on a path through a grove above the night lights of San Francisco

This is another of my handheld night photographs, something I’ve been experimenting with for a couple of years now. Newer high ISO small handheld cameras make it possible to work without a tripod in the urban landscape, essentially doing street photography in the (near) darkness. While there are some compromises in pure image quality — more noise to deal with in post, and greater potential for motion blur, working this way makes in possible to photograph in ways that just aren’t possible with a tripod. I can move quickly and respond to changing subjects more readily, and I’m less of an obvious intrusion on the scene.

This photograph might seem like one for which a tripod would be appropriate. I can’t argue with that on a technical basis. But I point out that between the time I saw this person walking along the path and the time I made three quick exposures was measured in seconds. With a tripod-mounted camera I simply would not have been able to make the photograph.

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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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Winter Wetlands

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Winter Wetlands
Ponds and trees on a winter morning in the San Joaquin Valley

Winter Wetlands. San Joaquin Valley, California. January 1, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Ponds and trees on a winter morning in the San Joaquin Valley

This is a very familiar spot to me — and probably to some of my friends as well. We often pass through this area while photographing in the San Joaquin Valley, usually looking for migratory birds (and often in very dense fog!). This is a landscape of farmland, interspersed by ponds, in and area of the valley through which large rivers travel — or traveled, until the waterways were “managed” for agricultural and other uses. There are trees, too, though they are often widely separated from one another or else arranged in long rows along roads and property lines.

There are a few birds in this photograph — you may see them on the water if you look closely — but it is more about the landscape. Here it consists of (mostly) those ponds, divided by low levees on which grasses and other plants grow and an occasional tree takes root.

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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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

From The Gallery Window

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From The Gallery Window
A San Francisco street scene viewed from the window of a photography gallery

From The Gallery Window. San Francisco, California. December 6, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A San Francisco street scene viewed from the window of a photography gallery

We came to this place more or less by chance. It was a somewhat lazy day for us — we had attended a concert the night before and stayed overnight near the venue. Since we had another concert coming up on the second evening we decided to not have any serious plans in the morning. We got up late and finally wandered down past City Hall, through a farmers market, and then headed down Market Street. At one point I happened to look across the street and see the sign for “SF Camerawork” above an unlikely looking storefront, so we walked across to take a look, noticed that it was scheduled to open in less than 10 minutes, and decided we would stick around and take a look.

It probably seems odd that I hadn’t ever visited before, especially since this organization has existed in the City for decades, but sometimes odd things happen. In any case, the door finally opened, we climbed the long and marrow stairway, and arrived to find them in the process if installing an upcoming show: Landmark: Yosemite Through The Lens of Contemporary Landscape Photography. Despite the unfinished state of the installation, they allowed us to poke around and see the work that was already hung. They had one of Jerry Uelsmann’s fantastical landscape, several of the Mark Klett & Byron Wolfe juxtapositions of classic photographs collaged with modern photos of the same locations, a few witty Ted Orland pieces, and more. The exhibition space itself is very nice — open and with good light — and at one point I wandered to one of the street-facing windows and took advantage of the upper story location to make a few photographs of the street below.

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.