Tag Archives: two

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

Two Trees, Granite Face

August 7, 2015 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Two trees, one very old and one very young, grow high on a granite face in Yosemite National Park

This tree grows high on the apparently barren face of a tall granite dome in Yosemite National Park’s high country. Of all of the improbably places to spot a tree, and one that seems reasonably healthy and strong at that, this has to be one of the most unlikely. Given its location, it must be putting its roots down in little more than a large crack in the rock and it has to be fully exposed to strong winter winds and snow.

I have photographed it more than once in the past, and it continues to intrigue me. For thinking that I know the tree well, I was surprised to find that I had not previously noticed the smaller tree growing just beyond and to the right of the main tree — perhaps the offspring of the larger tree? For a short time in the morning, low angle light streaming across the tops of more granite formations to the east glances across the surface of the dome and beautifully lights the two trees.

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

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

Children in Striped Hoodies

August 4, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two children in striped hoodies walk along a San Francisco street at night

This is yet another photograph that I don’t actually recall making! Sometimes when shooting street I think I work so quickly and spontaneously that I simple capture an image and move on to the next one without imbedding the specific experience in my memory. This almost certainly was one of those very quickly made photographs, and I only made two exposures of these subjects before moving on to something else.

There is a lot in this photograph, some of which I was likely considering in the moment when I made the photograph and some of which may have been more or less a happy accident. I’m pretty certain that I was attracted to the fact that the two kids were both wearing hoodies with horizontal stripes — perhaps someone’s mother or father had just gone shopping for the two of them? A wonderful bonus was the child on the right (big sister?) putting her arm gently on the shoulder of the other child — her younger brother? Then there are the other bits of color — the blue form on the left (which houses an automated carnival-like figure) and the wildly painted lamp-post on the right. And, yes, there is something a bit disconcerting about seeing two young children alone on the nighttime streets of a big city — at least to this photographer who brought up three such young children.

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

Commentary, Photograph Exposed

A Photograph Exposed: One Subject, Two Compositions

August 3, 2015 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

(“A Photograph Exposed” is a series exploring some of my photographs in greater detail. A companion article looks at post processing issues related to the same subject.)

Landscape photographs depend on many things: good fortune to be in the right place at the right time, experience that helps predict when and where to find “right place at the right time,” sensitivity and experience that help you recognize the potential in a scene, being able to think beyond the intrinsic beauty of a scene to consideration of how it might make a photograph, an intuitive sense of “what is right” visually, the ability to apply some objective thought on top of the intuition, and other things in a list that is too long to recount completely.

I would like to share some of the thinking that went into photographing one particular scene earlier this summer.

“Island and Trees, Tuolumne River” — Trees grow on a small ,rocky island in the Tuolumne River, Yosemite National Park

Back in mid-July I experienced a special evening in the Tuolumne Meadows Sierra Nevada of Yosemite National Park. It was special for many reasons — some photographic and some not, but even the non-photographic reasons helped put my mind and my senses in the right place to make photographs. I had arrived and set up camp, taken care of camp chores, and finally headed out for late-afternoon and evening photography. I pulled off the road to take a look at a possible subject, and by remarkable coincidence found myself parked behind two good friends who were there for much the same reason. We joined forces and headed of to a nearby area that seemed promising. In an even more remarkable coincidence, partway there two more friends showed up, also there for the same purpose! Something about hiking off into a beautiful landscape with like-minded friends seems to heighten my awareness.

We followed the Tuolumne River and soon its angle of descent began to increase slightly as its channel narrowed and became more rocky.

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Photographs: England, Photographs: Urban/Street

Two Men, Trafalgar Square

July 4, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two men sitting atop a public monument in Trafalgar Square, London

The main appeal of Trafalgar Square for me, I think, was the people. The variety of visitors was surprising, including locals, international tourists, people just passing through, folks staking out a space in order to spend some time, and so forth. In many places the square contains crowds of people.

It seemed that these two fellows had discovered a way to find a small measure of solitude in this busy urban scene, namely to climb up on the monument and sit about the crowd.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: two

Two Trees, Granite Face

Children in Striped Hoodies

A Photograph Exposed: One Subject, Two Compositions

Two Men, Trafalgar Square

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