Tag Archives: walk

Cobbled Street

Cobbled Street, Montpellier, France
“Cobbled Street” — A man walks up the slope of a steep cobbled street, Montpellier.

After visiting Monpellier’s Arc de Triomphe and nearby Christmas Market, we headed back down the Rue Foch toward the old center of the city, but soon took a detour to the north. It eventually took us to the St. Pierre Cathedral and then the nearby Jardin des Plantes. To get there, we first traveled through some quieter, winding back streets, including this one where I photographed a man ascending a steep section.

The light in this location and others like it reminds me a lot of the light in slot canyons in the American Southwest. Because this “canyon” is also narrow and lined by tall “walls,” direct light rarely makes it to the street level. As a result, the light is often quite “cool,” or blue, since most of it is coming from the sky itself. But in places where the sunlight hits the walls, it reflects back and forth and sends a bit of warmer toned light into the “canyon,” as on the wall at the end of this street.

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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Woman and Delicatessen

Woman and Delicatessen, Paris
“Woman and Delicatessen” — A woman walks past the Marianne delicatessen, Paris.

This photograph comes from one of our long walks during our early-December visit to Paris. We have been to Paris before, but always in the summer. The winter (technically, very late fall) visit felt quite different. There are still tourists — like us! — but in far lower numbers. But the biggest difference is that instead of the usual pleasant to hot summer weather… it was cold and gray the whole time.

As with several of the other recent Paris photographs, this one falls into the “quick grab” category, in which I work very fast before an opportunity disappears. Here it was partly the woman walking toward my camera position — I managed to get two frames including her before she was gone. I’m also fascinated by a few other things, including the prevalence of the color red in this scene, along with the extensive plant life above the canvas overhang.

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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Stone Wall and Pedestrians

Stone Wall and Pedestrians, Paris
“Stone Wall and Pedestrians” — Parisiens walk and run past a tall stone wall.

The photograph is from somewhere in Paris. We were on a walk and I was photographing as we moved, not paying too much attention to identifying locations. (That’s a characteristic of how I work when photographing the urban environment — I am so focused on it as a visual experience that I often forget to record locations or the names of places and so on.)

If a photograph can be about something, this one might be in some ways about the relationships between people and the infrastructure of the the urban environment. . To my eye, the people here look very small and transitory by comparison to the scale of the building and the angular forms of most of the scene.


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.

G Dan Mitchell: Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


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

Three Parisiens

Three Parisiens
“Three Parisiens” — Three people walk along a street in Le Marais, Paris.

There is a story about this wall that I’ll share in the second paragraph. The photograph comes from the Le Marais district of Paris, where we were out for a walk in early December. It uses one of the classic approaches to street photography, namely finding an interesting street landscape and waiting for people to walk into the frame and populate it. This can lead to a lot of photos of the sides of people, but here it helps that the person in the lead has glanced in my direction.

About that story… This wall is the location of one of my favorite photographs that I have made in Paris. It features three (likely related) women in front of this wall… back when it was covered by some fascinating street art. (You can find the photo by searching for “je suis bleu” on my website.) This reinforces how transitory street


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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

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.subjects can be. Not only do people come and go, forming visual relationships that may last only an instant, but the street landscape itself changes over the seasons.