Tag Archives: usa

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Post-Storm Clouds

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Post-Storm Clouds
“Post-Storm Clouds” — A great variety of clouds and fog as a summer storm clears over the Eastern Sierra.

No, I am still not quite finished with this spectacular evening in the Sierra backcountry. In early August our group spent a week base-camped in the wilderness, heading out each day (starting before sunrise and concluding after dark) to photograph our spectacular surroundings. We experienced challenging weather during the first 24 hours, but on the evening of the second day the storm dissipated, and just at sunset things opened up and alpenglow briefly lit up the sky.

There was no guarantee of this happening — which is often the case when chasing such subjects. Not long before this things were pretty gray, and fog drifted just overhead, obscuring trees and peaks, al though we could see that the sky was lightening up a bit. Then a bit of pink showed up on the higher clouds, gradually working its way down though the various layers left by the departing storm. I had been photographing the fog, but I quickly turned my attention to this developing scene! As the sky became more and more colorful, a bank of lighter fog enveloped the top of a ridge on the other side of the valley beyond the lake. A few minutes after this spectacular finale… the show was over.

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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. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Master of All I Survey

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Master of All I Survey
A man sits on a bench next to a pile of garbage bags, Midtown Manhattan.

Master of All I Survey. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A man sits on a bench next to a pile of garbage bags, Midtown Manhattan.

It seems like there is always someone doing something interesting, unusual, compelling, typical, or in some other way worthy of attention in Manhattan. I’m not sure if that reflects on the character of the place or if it is simply a statistical matter — there are so many people there that you are bound to encounter, for better or worse, pretty much everything on the human spectrum. It is even possible to find isolated people, not part of any of the crowds that we associate with the place.

I saw this fellow while walking near the UN Plaza. It was morning — on a Sunday, if I recall correctly — and the area was relatively quiet. There wasn’t much of anything going on along this street, but there he sat, alone and not engaged in any particular discernible activity. In front of him was one of the characteristic morning piles of plastic trash bags, a common feature of this city.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Morning Shoreline

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Morning Shoreline
Early morning light on the shoreline of a subalpine Sierra Nevada lake.

Morning Shoreline. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Early morning light on the shoreline of a subalpine Sierra Nevada lake.

There is a lot to see along the edges of virtually any backcountry Sierra Nevada lake. As I go though my mental inventory from many past trips I think of mornings and evenings looking straight into low sunlight, campsites (from back in the days when we still thought it was OK to camp near the water), hours spent sitting quietly among rocks and plants, slow circumnavigations of lakes, the marshy areas near inlets and outlets, the mountains rising above them, and more. We spent a week at this lake, which gave me a chance to see it in almost all of its moods.

This particular location has some significance to me. In a previous time, it was still acceptable to camp on the top of the rocky ledge at the left, and it was our “go to” spot to set up tents and bivy sacks back then. These days, the authorities have (wisely) placed that spot off limits for camping — too close to the water, too likely that colorful tents draw attention, and too little area. But we can still visit, and on this trip I used the spot to get an elevated perspective on the lake. I made this photograph in the morning, as the first direct light of the day was working its way across the landscape. Although the nearby face was still almost entirely in shadow, the further trees were catching that morning sun.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Reflection Deception

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Reflection Deception
The glass surface of a New York building reflects and distorts its surroundings.

Reflection Deception. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

The glass surface of a New York building reflects and distorts its surroundings.

Scenes like this are, of course, common in big urban centers that are filled with tall, modern buildings. This one comes from Manhattan. One striking difference between many new buildings and those from a much earlier era is that today the surfaces are often nearly 100% windows and, as such, the buildings are extremely reflective. A few years ago it occurred to me how odd it is that what we see when we look at these buildings today is mostly not the buildings at all. The building is essentially invisible beyond the slender outlines of frames between windows. The “surface” we see is composed of other things — sky, clouds, other buildings — that are distorted by the qualities of the reflective surface. (I have an idea for a photo project: Remove all of the reflective surfaces from images of these buildings, leaving only the minimal structural elements that are actually visible.)

These buildings are one reason that I often refer to these places and photographs of them as “urban landscapes. There is a continuum in landscape photography. At one end lies subjects that are entirely “natural” — or at least seem to be so. Somewhere in between we enter the realm of historic landscape paintings, in which it was common to include the human presence. Continue along that trajectory far enough, and it is possible to see cities as being just a different sort of landscape, and that way of seeing leads to different ways of photographing them.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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