Tag Archives: weathered

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: People In Landscape

Abandoned

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Abandoned
Abandoned vehicles at a desert mining site.

Abandoned. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Abandoned vehicles at a desert mining site.

When you travel even a bit in the desert landscape (at least the California version that I know) you will come across evidence that you are not the first visitor. The original residents left behind fragile, compelling, and sometimes beautiful evidence in the form of rock art. (Treat them with respect, leave them as you found them, and don’t share their locations.) Later immigrants left traces that seem less attuned to the nature of the place. But over time, as they weather and degrade, they start to almost seem to be part of the landscape, and they make us pause and imagine coming to such a place to live and work. (Surprisingly, perhaps, some of these sites are only decades old.)

A bit of exploration in Death Valley National Park reveals many examples. Some, like this one, are not hard to find, and they may feel like intrusions in the landscape. Others are more remote and sometimes not immediately obvious. One of the most powerful experiences I had in this landscape came on my first visit years ago, when I wandered up a large fan and sat on a rock to rest. I happened to look down and notice one stone among the others — one that had been shaped for a purpose many years ago. I picked it up, turned it over in my hands, and tried to imagine the life of the person whose hands had shaped it. I put it back where I found it and returned to camp.

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: Pandemia, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Fence and Gate

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Fence and Gate
A gate in a fence along a trail, photographed on a neighborhood walk.

Fence and Gate. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A gate in a fence along a trail, photographed on a neighborhood walk.

As I have shared in the past, during the pandemic I have cut way back on longer photographic outings, which sadly means less time in places like the Sierra Nevada and similar. (I still go to those places — carefully! — but much less frequently.) On the other hand, initially to compensate but now because it has become habitual, I’m doing a lot of walking in a radius of a few miles around our home. Walks are very close to daily events, and they vary between a couple of miles and up to occasionally as much as eight miles. Among other benefits, these walks open my eyes to local features that I would otherwise overlook. (I have informally referred to the resulting photographs as “postcards from Pandemia.”)

This photo comes from one such recent walk. The subject is simply a gate in a fence along a trail that I probably walk two or three times each week. After months of walking past this, for some reason the gate caught my attention this time. I’ve gone with a black and white rendition here — I’m leaning towards focusing on monochrome for this series now — and a very dark interpretation of the subject. For a long time all of my photographs have tended to try to put more light into the scene. Don’t expect that to stop, however I’m also starting to consider how I can explore images that lean toward darker tones.

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.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Trees, Ridge, Sunset Clouds

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Trees, Ridge, Sunset Clouds
Weathered trees on a rocky ridge beneath sunset clouds, Yosemite National Park.

Trees, Ridge, Sunset Clouds. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Weathered trees on a rocky ridge beneath sunset clouds, Yosemite National Park.

Today I’ll take a brief intermission between the ongoing stream of the photographs from Utah that I have been finding in the raw file archive… and take a brief side trip back to the Yosemite National Park high country, a place that I’m missing right now. I could get up there — and I hope to in the next month or two — but the logistics are quite complicated at the moment.

This photograph comes from a day of weather a bit like what we’re experiencing in Northern California today — humid, thunderstorm weather. I made the photograph late in the day as the last light glowed pink on dissipating clouds above a ridge with stubborn old trees living on a very rocky ridge.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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.

Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Bamboo Fence, New and Old

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Bamboo Fence, New and Old
A partially updated bamboo fence, Portland, Oregon

Bamboo Fence, New and Old. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A partially updated bamboo fence, Portland, Oregon

Seems like I still have one more photograph from our 2012 visit to the Japanese Gardens in Portland, Oregon. We were there on a family visit and I was traveling light when it came to photography, taking only a single camera and one lens. A bit to my surprise, it turned out that we had some good photographic opportunities, so I made the best of the minimal gear.

The garden of course features beautifully arranged and managed plant life, but it also includes a lot of structures, ranging from small buildings to bridges and fences and benches and more. The form of this fence attracted me — I do like geometry! But I was also intrigued by the juxtaposition of new and old sections of the fence, a reminder that such things are not static but rather in a state of continual change.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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