Tag Archives: usa

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

Doorway, Windows, Stairs

June 6, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A San Francisco doorway with an interior stairway, night

For me street photography is not just about people — though I photograph that subject, too. It is also about what I might call “street landscape,” and I’m as intrigued by this landscape as I am by any other. Even when my subjects are the people in the urban world, I’m virtually always considering them at least partly in the context of where they are. I’m no less away of this landscape background in the urban world than I am when photographing birds in flight against the background of their landscape. And sometimes here, as in the natural world, I like to photograph that landscape without its “wildlife.”

The urban world especially fascinates me at night, and simple things can take on a new appearance. This was almost a “grab shot” as I walked back toward my car from where I had spent an hour photographing with friends along the San Francisco waterfront. If such things appeal to you, there might be a lot to find and consider in this image. Or not. You decide.

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

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Clearing Dust Storm, Evening

June 1, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Translucent atmosphere as the sky clears in the wake of a Death Valley dust storm

This was the tail end of a massive dust storm that was with us in one form or another for an entire day. Very early in the morning we had seen the precursor conditions when we visited a high ridge in the Panamint range before dawn. At that time there was a kind of haze in the atmosphere that I had come to associate with incipient dust storm conditions. By midday the dust was easily seen rising out of the great valleys on either side of the mountains, and before long tendrils of dust were snaking through the air above our position. Returning to Death Vally itself we encountered a wild scene — thick dust everywhere and extremely high winds. We gave up and shut ourselves indoors for a few hours, and then not long before sunset the wind abated a bit, and I ventured outside.

The dust storm was still raging across the valley, but in our location the winds had dropped considerably. But in the interim a weather system had moved overhead, and now it was raining into the dust storm — something I had not encountered here before. I made my way to an elevated location that was above much of the worst of the dust and from which I had wide views across the lower end of the Valley. From there I could see the Cottonwood Mountains to the west, and as the air cleared slightly the light made its way under the clouds and back-lit the dust still floating in the translucent atmosphere.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Summer, Sierra River

May 30, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Tuolumne river flows past forest and granite outcroppings on a summer afternoon.

This is a sort of “Sierra dreaming” photograph — a scene from last summer, of the sort that I’m looking forward to experiencing again this coming season. It is also a bit of a distraction from the fact that circumstances (nothing bad, just busy-ness and a deadline) have kept me away from the Sierra recently and will probably do so for another month of so. (Though I am sure that this particular spot, photographed in mid-July during a drought year, may look quite a bit different on that date this year!)

Many Sierra Nevada photographs focus on the monumental and spectacular — and for good reason. There are plenty of spectacular and monumental things in the range! But after many decades of wandering around these mountains I find that more and more it is more subtle features that define the experience for me and which draw me back again. This season I have started to see the reports of those venturing very early into the back-country, and each time I see another photograph of a bit of rocky trail, a path through forest, or a fast-flowing creek, it brings back my own memories of many such places — memories that go beyond the mere visual qualities to include sounds of water and rock, the fragrance of the trees, and the feeling of the breeze. Humor me with this somewhat unspectacular photograph of a place that isn’t special enough to be named — it, too, brings back almost all of those associations!

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

Tourists, Evening, San Francisco Bay

May 28, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Tourists pause in the evening at the end of a pier on San Francisco Bay

I was in San Francisco to meet up with a group of fellow (mostly) street photographers, first for dinner along the fringe of Chinatown and then out to make photographs afterwards. We finished dinner and headed out before sunset, beginning by photographing in the long shadows cast by early evening light in the downtown canyons. Since many in the group wanted to photograph the waterfront we headed that direction. I was geared up more for night street photography — typically done handheld rather than with the tripod I might choose to use for architectural or urban landscape photography — but I hung in with the group anyway.

At the waterfront, after wandering in and around some buildings, the group was of a collective mind to head out on one of the pedestrian piers that juts out into the Bay. Again, this was a bit different from what I had in mind, but there is no denying the attractions of being out over the surface of the Bay as the evening comes on and things quiet down. I photographed some fishermen, a few passing boats, bridges, and back towards the urban waterfront buildings.Eventually, as it became quite a bit darker, I took a moment to photograph a small group of what I assume must have been friends, sitting out near the end of the pier and conversing in the fading light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: usa

Doorway, Windows, Stairs

Clearing Dust Storm, Evening

Summer, Sierra River

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