Since the photograph is minimalist I will make the commentary minimal as well. I made the photograph outside the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) at the end of a recent visit. This was a photograph of opportunity, made handheld as I left the museum and saw this simple conjunction of planes and varied light and textures.
Painted brick wall of an old building, San Francisco
I seem to be in a bit of a black and white frame of mind today! A few weeks ago I had a chance to head up to San Francisco for a day, mainly to visit the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), but also to potentially do a bit of photography. As it turned out, virtually all of that day’s photograph was done in and around the museum, though the site does provide many interesting photographic opportunities, ranging from its architecture to the people inside and including the surrounding downtown neighborhood.
I have photographed this building before. In fact, it is hard to not photograph it. It stands right “behind” the museum and is visible from almost every vantage point on the east side of the building. It is an older brick building but it gives every appearance of having been upgraded and well maintained. While the inside appears to be pretty modern, from what I can see through the windows, the outside retains an aged patina and still includes the remains of some very old exterior painted sign.
Seen from foggy Central Valley wetlands, dawn comes to the sky above the Sierra Nevada
Driving toward this spot in the pre-dawn hours I encountered the usual winter tule fog as soon as I left the main highway for the narrow back roads that criss-cross the agricultural lands. I figured that it would be a foggy morning out in the wetland with the birds once I got to my destination, but instead the fog thinned as I arrived and, to my surprise, I could see the pre-dawn sky. I stopped, quickly set up my camera for bird photography… and immediately began photographing landscapes!
A bit of thin fogged hugged the ground a ways off in the distance. (And later it would glide back in and cover this area to the point that visibility was near zero.) Above the fog, the ponds, and the scattered trees the silhouette of the Sierra crest stretched from north to south. When I looked closely, I could pick out familiar peaks along the distant skyline. A few birds — geese and cranes — began to fly over, and I made this photograph as the sky lit up just before sunrise.
Huge boulders lie at the base of a fractured sandstone cliff, Capitol Reef National Park
The rugged sandstone landscape of Utah is among my very favorite, rivaling “my” Sierra Nevada. It certainly exceeds the Sierra when it comes to color, especially in autumn when the yellows and reds of fall colors are set off against the infinite variety of sandstone colors and textures and that beautiful blue sky. The iconic locations are well known — Zion, Bryce, Arches — but off the beaten track there are infinite other beauties to find in places like Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, a place that would certainly be one of our greatest national parks by now if not for politics. This photograph comes from Capitol Reef, a park that I’ve been getting to know for the past few years.
I’ve spent a lot of time there, and recently I’ve been looking forward to returning. However, now that I see the Utah politicians mounting a very serious special-interest attack on these great American lands, ranging from new monuments to some of the venerable places, I’m not going to give that state one bit of my business. Several major outdoor equipment manufacturers (Patagonia and Arcteryx as of this writing, with more to come) have dropped out of Utah’s major annual outdoor industry meet-up, and I think that a fine way to remind those Utah politicians that these lands matter — to all of us, but also to their constituents whose gas and food we buy and in whose motels we stay — is to take a No Utah vow until this changes. Perhaps I can get my sandstone fix in New Mexico? ;-)
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
