Tag Archives: woman

Smile

Smile
Central Park skaters, Manhattan

Smile. Central Park, New York City. July 2, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Central Park skaters, Manhattan

From what I’ve seen, New York’s Central Park in the summer is a hotbed for just about every kind of activity you can imagine. (New Yorkers are welcome to roll their eyes and say, “Duh. Californians!”) Folks are doing the loop on bicycles, there are picnickers all over the place, tourists wander about, you can stop and eat at food carts or restaurants, folks are working on their tans, and more.

I’m not usually a fan of noisy music in public places, so when we heard loud (disco!) music coming from nearby I was at first mildly annoyed. Then I decided to go take a look. What I found was wonderful: a sort of spontaneous, free-flowing, street dance on skates with all kinds of folks, from the skaters to those of us observing, just having a great time.


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.
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Alpine Lake, Morning

Alpine Lake, Morning
A solitary sunrise angler stands on shoreline rocks at an alpine Sierra Nevada lake reflecting a nearby peak

Alpine Lake, Morning. Eastern Sierra Nevada California. August 7, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A solitary sunrise angler stands on shoreline rocks at an alpine Sierra Nevada lake reflecting a nearby peak

During the first weekend of August I joined a group of friends for a quick backpacking trip into the eastern Sierra Nevada along the northeastern boundary of Yosemite National Park. This wasn’t primarily a photography trip so I went light, carrying a smaller system with only one lens and packing a very small tripod. The first day of the trip was, as we like to say, “interesting.” We woke up to cloudy skies that virtually guaranteed rain, and that guarantee was fulfilled in the late afternoon: I had just time to set up my tend before three hours of rain commenced! The next morning was clear, and after drying out I headed on up the trail to this beautiful lake along the crest.

After five years of historic drought and the resultant loss of permanent snow fields and damaged to vegetation, it is wonderful this year to see the changes created by last winter’s record snowfall. There are still snow banks everywhere, and even in August there were many snow crossings. On the morning after our night at this lake I got up at dawn and walked to a high place with a panoramic view of the lake and its surroundings. Just as the first sunlight began to stream across the shoulder of the peak across the lake a lone angler came to the shoreline and (thank you!) began to fish from a granite outcropping, framed against the reflection of the peak and morning sky.


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

Walking Woman, Wall

Walking Woman, Wall
A woman walks past a Manhattan wall

Walking Woman, Wall. New York City. July 2, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A woman walks past a Manhattan wall

We returned last night from a week in Manhattan, mostly visiting family but also wandering… and eating… and photographing. I know for a fact that I’m not the only so-called nature or landscape photographer who also loves photographing the urban landscape, and when there is hardly a more varied or compelling location than New York City — from Central Park to the skyscraper canyons to the variety of neighborhoods. I’m often happy to just go out walking with my camera, with only the vaguest notions of what I’ll photograph, and to be open to surprise.

We were walking uptown from our hotel, which was on Grand, almost in the middle of the Little Italy area, and we decided to pass through the Washington Square area. We were almost there when we approach portions of the NYU campus and I saw this cubist scene, with colors, shapes, and textures that immediately reminded me of the sandstone canyons of the Southwest. (Yes, my mind works that way, even in the Big City.) I made a few quick initial exposures and then paused to see who would walk into the frame on this sunny morning.


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

Pedestrian and Cyclist

Pedestrian and Cyclist
Pedestrian and cyclist on walkway in front of the Tate Modern, London

Pedestrian and Cyclist. London, United Kingdom. August 7, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Pedestrian and cyclist on walkway in front of the Tate Modern, London

We were well into our stay in London in the summer of 2016 when we finally got around to going to the Tate Modern, where there was an exhibit of paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe. I think we waited because she is American, we’ve seen shows of her work a lot, and we probably wondered how new the work would be in a London show. Because of our (misguided!) thinking, we ended up here with only a few hours to spend — only to discover that this was the most extensive collection of O’Keeffe’s work that we had seen in one place and that we didn’t have nearly enough time to see it all.

At one point, perhaps while waiting for our turn to enter the exhibit, we stepped out onto a balcony that was open to the landscaped area between the museum and the River Thames, where there were many pedestrians and a few cyclists. If I watch long enough I find that the passers-by sometimes assemble themselves into interesting groupings and patterns, so I indulged myself in a little bit of overhead photography, looking down from my high perch. The walkway took on a striking blue color in the shadow of the building, lit by the gigantic blue light panel of the sky as a walker and a cyclist approached one another.


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 | Twitter | FacebookGoogle+ | LinkedIn | Email


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