Tag Archives: wall

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Driveway, The Cloisters, Winter

January 16, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The curving driveway at the Cloisters Museum, New York City

We were in New York City during the final week of 2013, visiting family and doing the usual New York things – which, for me, always includes visiting museums and making photographs. We had visited The Cloisters, now part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art but far uptown, on a previous visit – but having not planned very well we arrived on a day when the place was closed! So we only were able to wander around the grounds outside and the surrounding park lands and then down into town below. This time we checked more carefully, and found that not only was it open but that we could use our Metropolitan of Art passes that we used the previous day.

It was a cold day, and when we got off of the long subway ride up from lower Manhattan we were a bit surprised by the wind blowing at Fort Tryon and we didn’t waste too much time in heading over to the museum. I recalled this curving, cobble stone driveway from our previous visit, when we walked up it to get to the front entrance. This time we came from the side and saw it from the top, curving away and toward the barren trees around the museum and cold scene of the city down below the hill in the distance.

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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Austria, Photographs: Urban/Street

Street Lamp and Open Window

January 9, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A street lamp and two windows on a building wall along a narrow street in Salzburg, Austria

I saw these interesting lamps on my first day walking around in Salzburg but didn’t think much more about them until later. They were attached to walls by what look like curved rods of iron, and were not like anything that I’m familiar with. Later, when visiting a location near but not in Salzburg, I saw the same lamps on other buildings. Now, seeing a pattern, I started looking for them, and they popped up in lots of different places in and around Salzburg.

This wall belongs to what I presume is a home or apartment along a narrow street not far from central Salzburg. In the afternoon we walked away from the busy old central city and headed toward a nearby area where we had parked, and as we did we passed through a number of these old, narrow streets. In places, the afternoon light was almost parallel to the streets, and here it glances across the rough surface of the wall, hitting one window and casting a shadow on the open upper window.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Austria, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Yellow Wall, Hellbrunn Palace

January 5, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Yellow walls, green shutters, and the ubiquitous metal street lamps, Hellbrunn Palace near Salzburg, Austria

Hellbrunn is the site of the famous water garden, including a variety of “trick” fountains. I had never heard of the place, but our family guides thought it would be a good place to visit, so there we went. It was a palace for a member of Austrian nobility at one point (there’s more to the story than that…), and the story goes that he enjoyed playing tricks on guests. As a result, the grounds feature not only the usual huge lawns, statues, manicured gardens and so forth, but also a lot of water, some used to create all sorts of tricks and oddities.

There are benches from which water may spray on the person sitting there, doorways to small buildings that can suddenly spray the visitor, water that sprays up from sidewalks, and animated scene powered by water, a water powered organ, and more. The buildings, which are quite extensive, also include more staid living quarters, places to entertain guests, and art collections. As we walked around, I noticed the same street lamps attached to the exterior walls that I had seen elsewhere in Salzburg, so I included an example in this photograph of the corner of a brightly painted building.

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Brick Building, Doorway, Reflected Sky

December 14, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

The desert sky is reflected in the windows of an abandoned brick building in the ghost town of Bodie, California

I have been to Bodie quite a few times, but I rarely go there anymore unless I think something interesting might happen with the weather. The place is often sun-blasted, with cloudless blue skies, and during the part of the year when it is most often visited it tends to be quite hot and dry. Don’t get me wrong – Bodie is a fascinating place and its story is even more interesting. I’ve visited a number of ghost towns and isolated abandoned structures in the outback of California, and the sheer scope of this ghost town sets it apart, as does that fact that California has worked to sustain it in a state of suspended decay.

We were wandering around the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada and points further east of that on the final day of our five-day “aspen chasing” visit this October. Most often my plans are a bit general and/or flexible, and I like to adapt to changing conditions rather than stick to a preset shooting schedule. On this day we were surprised to find it snowing when we awoke in Mammoth Lakes, and as we left town to explore in an eastward direction we stopped to photograph dawn snow flurries over the Sierra crest. Eventually, after going a good distance out toward the Nevada border, we looped back to the north and ended up in Lee Vining, where we grabbed a (very late!) breakfast at Nicely’s. The possibility of going to Bodie was somewhere on the list of options, but when we continued to see snow falling about the town and clouds to the north and east, we decided to head out there to see what we could find. In the end, there was no snow falling in Bodie – though it had fallen there earlier that day – but it was very cold and very windy and broken clouds provided interesting and changeable light. One of my main subjects as I wandered around the town making photographs turned out to be the doors and windows on the old buildings. Perhaps ironically, given my usual lack of interest in sun-blasted Bodie, I shot this scene in nearly flat front light – but it seemed appropriate for this old and weathered building and the reflection i the old windows of the very blue cloud-filled sky.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: wall

Driveway, The Cloisters, Winter

Street Lamp and Open Window

Yellow Wall, Hellbrunn Palace

Brick Building, Doorway, Reflected Sky

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