Tag Archives: white

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Tile and Concrete Wall

August 26, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

A weathered tile and concrete wall at Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco.

I’ll throw things a bit off-kilter here and interrupt the stream of landscape images from the Sierra Nevada with a minimalist photograph of a tile wall that I made while walking around in San Francisco in July. This may not be quite as simple a photograph as it first appears, and in larger version or print it becomes more apparent that the tiles are varied and weathered in interesting ways that produce a range of textures and colors.

I do a certain number of “minimalist” photographs – some of the urban landscape and others of the natural landscape and seascapes. Sometimes when I’m photographing some of the urban subjects I get some very strange looks from passers-by! I guess it must be hard to imagine why some guy with a fancy camera is pointing it straight at a wall in downtown San Francisco when so many other seemingly more compelling subjects are all around. Or else they might wonder if there is something there that they just don’t see.

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.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Burned Forest, Evening

August 14, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening light on an eastern Sierra Nevada forest recovering from a recent wildfire.

This spot is in Mono County along highway 395 not far from June Lake, and it is a spot that I’ve had my eyes on for some time. As a person who was brought up in the “Smokey the Bear” era, when wildfires were thought to be entirely a bad thing, it took me a while to come to terms with the knowledge that such fires are a natural and necessary element. I understood this logically before I understood it aesthetically, and I struggled for some time with the idea that places where fires have occurred can be seen as sites of rebirth rather than as destruction and desolation.

I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity and the right light to photograph this burn area for a couple of years now. I pass by fairly often, but it has always been at the wrong time of day or at a time when I could not afford to stop. However, as is often the, unexpected coincidences caused me to be here just before sunset as the light turned golden in mid-August. Ironically, part of the cause was… a forest fire in Yosemite! Up in the Tuolumne area, the afternoon air had turned smokey and the light had taken on the sort of brownish color that forest fire smoke can create. This light was not inspiring me, so I thought that I’d drive over the pass and head south a short distance on highway 395 to see if I could find more interesting lighting. As I traveled south from Lee Vining I happened to notice the turn-off for West Portal Road, which heads out in the general direction of Mono Craters. I took this road and spent some time poking around, eventually making a few exposures in the area called Aeolian Buttes, and then returned to the main highway a bit south of where I had originally left the road.

As it happened, this choice dropped me onto 395 at a place where I could see this burned area just a bit further down the road. The sun was not far from dropping behind the Sierra crest, so I figured this could be my chance to give it a try. I found a spot where the late afternoon light was warming the color of the summer-dried grasses and some white flowers grew among the burned trees, and I had perhaps 15 minutes to work before the sun dropped behind the peaks.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Blue and Green Receptacles, Yerba Buena Gardens

July 21, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Blue and green waste receptacles next to a glass wall at Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco.

I’m tempted to not say much about this photograph, beyond the basics of where and when and what. The “where” is along the wall of the performing arts center at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center. The when is on a morning with high fog that produced some nice, diffused light. The “what” is, well, a couple of trash cans in front of a large window, behind which there are a couple of other trash cans in the same color scheme, a drinking fountain, and some yellow walls. Profound, no? :-)

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Boulders, Cascade Creek

July 4, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Granite boulders deflect the turbulent flow of Cascade Creek as it descends to the Merced River, Yosemite National Park.

This photograph is another in my continuing study of the boulders and flowing water of Yosemite’s Cascade Creek. I made this photograph fairly early in the morning on the weekend when Tioga Pass opened this year. I arrived before the scheduled 8:00 a.m. opening of Tioga Pass Road and decided that it would be more interesting and useful to photograph this subject than to wait in line so that I could be on my way over the pass at exactly the moment the road opened, especially when the morning brings shaded, diffused light to this cascade.

As I repeatedly photograph this subject, I begin to know it much more thoroughly. Partly it is a matter of understanding the seasonal and even daily ebb and flow of water and light at this place, but it is also a process of becoming very familiar with smaller details of the scene. When I first photographed here this rock outcropping was something that I occasionally worked to minimize in some compositions, but it has since come to be an interesting subject on its own. It extends into the torrent, forcing the water to flow around (and partially over, in high water) before dropping steeply to the right, running into other rocks, and making a quick and turbulent left turn before heading over another drop. Because it sits in the middle of all of this wild water, it is often covered with water and this water reflects the light of the open sky beyond the shaded confines of this narrow canyon.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.