Tag Archives: urban

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Purple Larkspur

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Purple Larkspur
“Purple Larkspur” — Purple larkspur flowers, blooming in Northern California.

Recently I wrote — again! — about returning to unremarkable “special places” that probably don’t have any meaning to anyone but me. This photograph comes from one that I mentioned, a trail through a small ravine at a nearby country park. Every spring I go there to visit spots where I can photograph a few favorite wildflowers, including a particular little area where these Larkspur flowers bloom.

They are odd flowers, not like so many of the other popular spring wildflowers. Their color is dark, sometimes so dark that is is quite difficult to photograph them. (I try to find them when they are still in the shadows, and the soft light helps reveal details.) Because of the way they grow from a central stem, it can be challenging to make a composition out of them, much less get a plane of focus that lines up ideally with their dense details.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

G Dan Mitchell: Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


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

Photographs: Europe, Photographs: France, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Achat de Chevaux

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Achat de Chevaux, Paris
“Achat de Chevaux” — A mosaic featuring the image of a red horse on an old Paris shop.

As usual, I made the photo while thinking of it purely as a visual object, and only later did I stop to wonder about what it meant and why it might be there. I’m still a little bit confused about it. Some poking around on the internet offered a couple of translations of the words. They are literally, as I understand it, “purchase of horse.” One writer suggests that it might mean that a former business purchased horses. A complicating factor is that at least one previous business here was a butcher shop.

As to the visual quality of the object, the brilliant red colors certainly got my attention, as did the form of the horse on its two hind legs. Even more, whoever made this attention-grabbing sign did so in a truly old school manner. It is a complex and fascinating mosaic, and the entire front and side of the building are also covered in more abstract mosaic tile designs.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

G Dan Mitchell: Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


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

Photographs: Europe, Photographs: France, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Stone Wall and Pedestrians

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Stone Wall and Pedestrians, Paris
“Stone Wall and Pedestrians” — Parisiens walk and run past a tall stone wall.

The photograph is from somewhere in Paris. We were on a walk and I was photographing as we moved, not paying too much attention to identifying locations. (That’s a characteristic of how I work when photographing the urban environment — I am so focused on it as a visual experience that I often forget to record locations or the names of places and so on.)

If a photograph can be about something, this one might be in some ways about the relationships between people and the infrastructure of the the urban environment. . To my eye, the people here look very small and transitory by comparison to the scale of the building and the angular forms of most of the scene.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

G Dan Mitchell: Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Europe, Photographs: France, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Paris Reflections

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Paris Reflections — an "invisible" building.
“Paris Reflections” — Reflective walls around a construction produce an imagined urban landscape.

Approaching this structure was an odd experience. At first I think I didn’t even quite notice it. And then when I first did become aware of “it,”I thought I was looking at a street lined with tall buildings. But it quickly became apparent that it was an illusion, produced by a huge cube of mirror panels reflecting the surrounding neighborhood.

It wasn’t quite clear what the structure was about when we saw it. We eventually determined that it isn’t an actual “real” building, but instead was some sort of wall that cuts off the view of construction work happening inside. What in this entire photograph is “real?” The foreground asphalt and roadway, but that’s it. The rest is entirely reflections of other things in the surrounding area.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

G Dan Mitchell: Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


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