Tag Archives: winter

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

8 AV and Jane St

January 6, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A winter evening at the corner of 8th Avenue and Jane Street, Manhattan

Continuing my photographic bipolar swings between the natural world and the human world, here is another street photograph. It ties in with a couple of things that I’ve been thinking about recently in my street photography. First, it is an example of night street photography, shot handheld in near darkness using a small camera and high ISO. A year and a half ago I suddenly realized that this kind of photography had become a realistic possibility with the newer high ISO cameras. As a person who has long done long-exposure night photography from the tripod, this was truly a revelation. Secondly, I’m crazy about photographing lighted buildings, stores, restaurants and the light that spills from them onto the sidewalk, street, and anyone who happens to be passing by.

Aside from the general way that I’m always on the lookout for such things, this photograph was almost an accident. We had spent the afternoon at the new Whitney Museum. Those who know me have come to understand my predilection for spending way too much time going way too slowly through museums, and those people eventually give up and move on to other things, leaving me to continue ambling past the art. On this visit some of the people I was with had more or less “done” the Whitney in about and hour and a half — at which point I had more or less finished one floor of the place! We decided that they would all go ahead and find a place to eat and drink, and they ended up at a little tavern across the street from this photograph. I showed up hours later and joined them for food and beer, and we finally left the place after dark. As soon as I walked outside I saw this building across the street.

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

Photograph Exposed, Photographs: San Francisco

A Photograph Exposed: “San Francisco Skyline, Winter Fog and Haze”

May 24, 2015 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

(“A Photograph Exposed” is a series exploring some of my photographs in greater detail.)

San Francisco Skyline, Winter Fog and Haze

Fog and haze obscure the winter skyline of downtown San Francisco, California.

It is unlikely that any view of San Francisco will be entirely unique, but I haven’t seen many other photographs of the City’s skyline that look quite like this one. It isn’t unusual for people who see the photograph (especially as a print) to ask, “Is that real?” It is as real as a photograph gets, and the conditions actually occurred — the only time I have seen them quite like this, with quite this soft and subtle atmosphere and light. (The post-processing on this photograph was relatively minimal, and a lot of it was about controlling the brightness of that bright cloud high in the sky.)

Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I frequently drive north over the Golden Gate Bridge to photograph in the redwoods, along the coast, or at Point Reyes National Seashore. This usually means leaving home well before the sun rises, and depending on where I’m headed, I usually cross the bridge right around dawn. The plan is to pause and look at the scene in the early light and decide if something really interesting might happen — and it that seems probable I’ll photograph here for a while before moving on.

The light and atmosphere on this winter morning were special enough to get me to pause. Continue reading A Photograph Exposed: “San Francisco Skyline, Winter Fog and Haze” →

Photographs: Urban/Street

Saint Ansel of the Donut Shop

March 29, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sunlit donut shop interior with semi-concealed photograph

This photograph comes from a memorable little photo excursion… that started at my front door. Some years ago (wow, has it been five years!?) I decided on Christmas Eve day to go out for a walk with my camera. It was an afternoon of interesting light, and it seemed like something to do. As I walked through the familiar neighborhood several things surprised me. As I recall, the long winter shadows of trees were appearing on buildings everywhere I looked and they became a subject. And I also saw things in this neighborhood that I thought I knew so well — I’ve lived here for decades — that I simply had not noticed before.

There is something about having a camera in hand that changes the way I see. Usually it is all too easy to see “casually” without really considering or even really noticing what is right there. For example, I distinctly noticing for the first time the fronts of the upper stories of buildings in the small downtown business area. I had no doubt walked that street hundreds of times before without paying any conscious attention to them. As I walked past this little donut shop, beautiful late-afternoon light flooded its interior. Again, though I had been inside many times (yum! donuts!) this was the first time that I noticed the old Ansel Adams reproduction on the wall. (There is an earlier version of this photograph in black and white.)

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.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Ross’s Geese, Evening Sky

March 28, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of Ross’s geese head west against the clouds of a winter evening sky

This may well end up being one of my final migratory bird photographs of the 2014-15 season. It seemed to wind down early this year, at least from what I saw. I suspect that this probably has something to do with the very unusual weather this winter in California. The temperatures were far above normal. In some places there averaged ten degrees higher than usual during the first three months of the year. Precipitation has also been way out of whack. There were some early indications of a possible wet year, then things seemed to be put on hold… until some serious rain (at my elevation) in December, which brought back memories of what winter used to be like in California. Then the tap seemed to be shut off with the new year, and where I live we went nearly 50 days with no rainfall whatsoever at what should be the wettest time of the year. It finally rained again, but not much. More troubling, the Sierra experience roughly 10% of typical precipitation levels, and this is the fourth year of below normal precipitation.

Despite the climate challenges, the season did produce some truly wonderful days of bird photography in the Central Valley. One thing that helped was a long period of tule fog in the Valley, which I find picturesque. Eventually the birds showed up, and we had a great stretch of geese and cranes and more up through the middle of February. At the end of the month we headed to the Sierra for an exhibit at the Yosemite Renaissance, stopping on the way to visit the birds. We didn’t see many at all, and when we stopped again on the way back things hadn’t changed much. Late in the day we did find a group of Ross’s geese on a pond, and I caught groups of them as they departed to the south and west.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: winter

8 AV and Jane St

A Photograph Exposed: “San Francisco Skyline, Winter Fog and Haze”

Saint Ansel of the Donut Shop

Ross’s Geese, Evening Sky

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