Tag Archives: war

Photographs: Germany, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Stolpersteine, Heidelberg

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Stolpersteine, Heidelberg
Sidewalk memorials to the memory of German Jews who were victims the Holocaust.

Stolpersteine, Heidelberg. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sidewalk memorials to the memory of German Jews who were victims the Holocaust.

This photograph has been sitting on my computer for several months now, and I have been debating when and how to post it. It isn’t “the usual thing” for me to post, but there you go. I’m not an expert on the Stolpersteine (wikipedia says “literally ‘stumbling stone,” metaphorically ‘stumbling block’.”) so I’m relying on some material I have found online plus some context provided to me by people I know who live in the areas where they are found. (You can read more about them here, including some of the controversies about their installation.) In front of homes, shops, all kinds of buildings you fine these plates indicating that “Here lived…” a specific person who was deported or killed in the Holocaust, thus de-anonymizing the effects of that horror and tying it closely to places where people seem to live normal lives today.

One reason I have been thinking about the Stolpersteine is that here in the US we have been engaging in a (sometimes absurd) debate about how to best recognize and come to terms with very difficult and awful parts of the history of our great country, in particular the enslavement of Africans and the long and ongoing oppression of people of color. An element of this has been the call to remove monuments to slavers and traitors who fought a war agains this country. The counter cry is “Don’t take our history away.” The history should, of course, remain and be readily visible and available. But glorifying the perpetrators of that history is another matter entirely. It might not be a bad idea to have our own version of the “stumbling stones,” perhaps marking the places where enslaved people were sold, where post-Civil War atrocities took place, and more.

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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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Interior Detail, War Memorial Opera House

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Interior Detail, War Memorial Opera House - Entrance to stairways at the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco.
Entrance to stairways at the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco.

Interior Detail, War Memorial Opera House. San Francisco, California. June 29, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Entrance to stairways at the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco.

We are fortunate to have season tickets to San Francisco Opera. (No. Not box seats. Not even orchestra seats. But, still, the opera… :-) So we spend a fair amount of time in the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco and wander around the place a bit before shows and during intermissions. I find the whole place architecturally interesting, and some day I would love to have an opportunity to go in there with all of the right gear and have free run of the place to make photographs.

But for now I have to make do. This particular entry and the stairwell beyond have intrigued me for a while. Long before I made this photograph I had made a few iPhone images of the scene and thought about what it contains and some of the reasons that it must attract me. Last summer we went to the San Francisco Opera performance of Wagner’s “Ring,” and due to the somewhat extreme length of the component operas, many of the performances started fairly early – this one started at 7:00 p.m., meaning that there was plenty of light coming in from the windows to the right of the scene. On this evening I had brought along a camera body and a single 50mm prime, which turned out to be just about the right lens for this scene.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Commentary, Ideas

Things that sometimes baffle me about photographers and photography

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This is by no means a complete list, but inspired by seeing one of these oddities in a post earlier today I thought I’d write it up.

  • “Unboxing videos” of new cameras. Why would someone make a 5 or 10 minute video of the act of opening the box that their new camera came in and then lovingly taking out… the manual, the USB cables, the styrofoam inserts, the warranty card, and on and on and on – often with narration and sometimes even background music. Do people actually watch these?
  • Spending thousands and thousands of dollars on “the best” camera, lens, etc. when one isn’t really a photographer and doesn’t really make photographs all that much and perhaps only shares the odd jpg or letter size print with friends and family.
  • Getting caught up in the “brand wars” between manufacturers like Nikon and Canon. They both make really, really fine equipment. Both are used by a lot of excellent photographers. Really wonderful photographs are produced using both systems every day.
  • Assuming that there is only one best “whatever” in photography. There is no such thing as “The Best… camera, lens, tripod, photographer, memory card, place to shoot, time of day to shoot, filter, brand, store, paper…” First, there are many good versions of each. Second, what is best for one person may not be best for another.
  • Obsessing over very tiny and insignificant equipment “flaws” or differences. The classic is, of course, choosing a less functional lens over a more functional lens because the less functional lens might measure .001% better resolution at 100% magnification on the test bench. Related are obsessions over very tiny differences in noise in digital cameras, concern about small difference in camera burst rate, worry that your lens might vignette some…
  • Thinking that you have to “take a position” on zooms versus primes. (Zooms and primes are both great, and you have my permission to use both… ;-)
  • Secret shooting locations – unless the area is fragile and too much use would damage it, if ten good photographers shoot it you’ll get ten different interpretations.

Anyone else?