Tag Archives: waiting

Waiting for Sunrise

Waiting for Sunrise
Four people await sunrise in California’s Central Valley.

Waiting for Sunrise. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Four people await sunrise in California’s Central Valley.

Waking up in the darkness, perhaps many hours before sunrise, strikes many people as being somewhere between barbaric and impossible. They literally cannot imagine themselves doing it, and perhaps they never have gotten up early enough to watch the first light appear. The odd thing is that most of us who do get up “that early” understand that the reward of watching sunrise makes the discomfort well worth it. In fact, it seems to us that NOT getting up for sunrise is the tragedy.

This was an exceptionally brilliant pre-sunrise experience, though it did not last long at all. In fact, friends of ours who arrived only a little later found the skies mostly gray. But the clouds in the east, leading out toward the Sierra crest, where as brilliantly colorful as I have ever seen 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.

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Waiting Man

Waiting Man
A man stands at the curb with his head bowed, San Francisco.

Waiting Man. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A man stands at the curb with his head bowed, San Francisco.

This photograph comes from a day spent doing street photography while walking through San Francisco… just a few short months before our world changed in early 2020 and such activities become difficult, if not impossible. I still photograph “street” a bit in the areas not far from where I live, but I haven’t been back to shoot this way in San Francisco since the “before times” — though I’m starting to imagine being able to do so once again. I did just a bit of this kind of photography when I spent a few days up there during our Open Studio event at a gallery in North Beach, though I’m still distracted by streets full of masked people.

I know that some people wonder why this “nature photographer” wanders off to photograph urban environments, and some are even perplexed by the photographs. There are lots of reasons for a landscape photographer to also be a street photographer. In some ways the genres are complementary, and doing one actually has the potential to improve the other. If nothing else, photographing street can remove the “I don’t have anything to photograph!” excuse, since there’s potentially something right outside your front door. In addition, for photographers who are often more comfortable photographing things than people, this work can be a way to stretch your boundaries.


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

Village People

Village People
Pedestrians waiting for the light to change, San Francisco

Village People. San Francisco, California. May 20, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Pedestrians waiting for the light to change, San Francisco

A photograph like this one may or may not make sense to you. If it does, I probably don’t need to write much about it. If it doesn’t, I’m not sure that I can write enough to explain. But I’ll try. A little bit.

Walking around any large city, and especially in San Francisco, I’m on the lookout for various things: a scene, light, collections of people, individual people, color, architecture, shapes, you name it. I think the light first caused me to pause at this corner. Here much of the light is reflected from the windows of surrounding building, and it comes from almost all directions. Then, for just a moment, this collection of people, most of whom are unconnected with the others in the scene, assembled themselves into this pose, one that almost seems staged. The arrangement of the group intrigues me, but even more the contributions of the individuals is interesting.


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