Tag Archives: visitor

Umbrellas, Getty Center Garden

Umbrellas, Getty Center Garden
Umbrellas, Getty Center Garden

Umbrellas, Getty Center Garden. Los Angeles, California. December 30, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Visitors with umbrellas walk through the Getty Center garden beneath winter trees on a foggy and rainy day.

This is – obviously – a black and white landscape orientation take on the scene in the garden at the Getty museum in Los Angeles that I posted earlier in a portrait orientation color version. The conditions were rainy and foggy – unusual, I presume, for the Getty – as several small groups of visitors carrying umbrellas wandered along the twisting and sometimes angular path through the garden below the main buildings. The light colored umbrellas are an interesting visual feature that you’ll always see when it rains at the Getty, as they loan them to visitors by the hundreds. I’m sure it is no accident that the color of the umbrellas blends well with the color of the facility.

These photos were more or less very quick shots. As I noticed the misty view of the garden the umbrella-carrying people quickly showed up on the path – much to my surprise since I figured that few people would be out there in this murky weather. Fortunately I had a zoom lens on the camera and was able to quickly frame both vertical and horizontal compositions and then shoot fairly quickly as the people passed through the scene and assembled themselves in interesting arrangements.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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A Somewhat Humorous Yosemite Story

When I’m out photographing I cart around the typical pile of stuff – the big, squarish bag of camera bodies and lenses and accessories, the tripod, the works. And when I photograph in popular places I make it a habit to offer to take photographs of folks with their P&S cameras. You know the scene – the family traveled hundreds or thousands of miles to get to some beautiful place, but one member of the family is missing from every photo since someone has to hold the camera. (The embarrassing thing is that sometimes I don’t understand how to operate these little cameras, but that is a story for another post.)

Put the two together and some surprising and odd conversations can ensue. Last Saturday I was in the Happy Isles area of Yosemite Valley looking for dogwood trees in bloom when I saw a mother about to snap a photo of (I presume) her daughter, so I asked if they would like me to use their camera to take a picture of the two of them together. I put down my bag and left the camera on the tripod and made the photograph. The woman inspected the photo, seemed to approve, then looked at me and my stuff and asked, “Hey, you aren’t Mr. Adams, are you?”

Sometimes it is so hard to avoid saying the wrong thing in reply, but I think I more or less succeeded… ;-)

Welcome to Visitors from the 5dmk2 Blog

I noticed a spike in visits this morning that I’ve traced back to a reference in a post at the 5DMk2 blog at 1001 Noisy Cameras to yesterday’s post here about Live View on the 5DII. Thanks for the link, and welcome to visitors entering my blog world through the 1001 Noisy Cameras doorway. (And for those who arrived via a different route, if you are interested in the 5D2 and related topics, you should wander on over to the 5DMK2 blog once you finish up here.)

The two points I wrote about yesterday (the benefits of live view for depth of field preview and for shooting with very dark ND filters) are not the only benefits of the live view feature. For example, I earlier wrote about its value when doing night photography, and quite a few of my recent wildflower photos took advantage of it. Before long I hope to write up a more complete article outlining the range of uses for live view.

If this is your first visit to my blog, take a look around. I post a daily photograph (recent work has come from Death Valley and a number of central California locations) and the occasional opinion or news piece. You can subscribe via RSS (link near the top of the page) and members are welcome to post discussion messages.

(Shortly after posting this I got a message from B&H photo saying that they again have the Canon EOS 5D Mark II in stock, and unlike some other dealers they sell it with no markups at the list price of $2669.95.)

Three Umbrellas, Yosemite Valley View

Three Umbrellas, Yosemite Valley View

Three Umbrellas, Yosemite Valley View. Yosemite Valley, California. November 2, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Visitors with red and green umbrellas on a rainy day at Yosemite Valley View.

It was late in the day and I decided to take a quick run up to Wawona Tunnel Valley View. Although it was cold and wet and a bit dismal, there was no shortage of photographers… and even a few other visitors. Since I’ve shot this scene many times, I’m a bit jaded I suppose – I don’t photograph it unless it is really quite special. This evening wasn’t quite up to that standard, but the scene of these umbrella bearing valley viewers caught my attention.

“Jaded’ as I may be, I do understand the deep attraction that this place and this view have for visitors. Since I get to stand in this spot often, I have the opportunity to see and sometimes talk with people who have dreamed of standing in front of this view, who are there for the first time, and who have travelled great distances to get there. As someone I spoke with this weekend did, they often use words like “spiritual”to describe the experience. I understand, and I think the fact that people will stand here in freezing rain on a day when most of the view is blocked by clouds is further evidence of this.

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