Tag Archives: woman

Umbrellas, Getty Center Garden

Umbrellas, Getty Center Garden
Umbrellas, Getty Center Garden

Umbrellas, Getty Center Garden. Los Angeles, California. December 30, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Visitors walk through the garden on a rainy and foggy afternoon day at the Getty Center, Los Angeles, California.

I’m probably just about the only person who goes to the Getty Center hoping for rain… and who is regards himself as lucky when he gets rain… and fog! :-)

We were in LA during the past week to visit my daughter and our son-in-law, and we decided to stop at the Getty on the start of our return drive to the SF Bay Area. I’m always fascinated by the grounds of the Getty and by the opportunities to photograph people on those grounds, and interesting weather makes this even more appealing. On top of that my daughter had told us about the wonderful Rembrandt exhibit and I was looking forward to the Irving Penn “Small Trades” photographs on display. (It is a great exhibit – see it if you are in the area.)

I often confess that as much as I enjoy the art at the Getty, I enjoy the Getty as architecture and urban landscape just as much. Although few of my Getty photographs appear here, I very much enjoy photographing the forms and lighting of the buildings and the gardens. It was raining lightly when we arrived, and by the time we made it up the hill fog had settled on the ridge. I actually made well over 100 exposures throughout the day. Many were shot quickly as momentary conjunctions of people and light and atmosphere appeared and just as quickly disappeared. I happened to find myself on a walkway overlooking the fogged-in garden just as a couple groups of umbrella-bearing visitors encountered one another near the sharp point of this path.

This photograph is 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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keywords: getty, center, art, museum, los angeles, california, usa, path, walk, sidewalk, people, man, woman, umbrella, tan, red, white, trees, silhouette, plant, lawn, grove, step, reflection, fog, mist, cloud, rain, shower, stock

P, With Umbrella, Getty Center

P, With Umbrella, Getty Center
P, With Umbrella, Getty Center

P, With Umbrella, Getty Center. Los Angeles, California. December 30, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Posted on our anniversary… :-)


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.

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

Beach Walkers, Winter Sunset

Winter Sunset, Panther Beach

Beach Walkers, Winter Sunset. Pacific Coast, California. January 11, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A group of beachwalkers cross the sand before sunset at the end of a winter day.

I made this photograph last winter, but didn’t rediscover it until yesterday when I had the opportunity to go back though some work from early this year. It is probably another case of initially viewing the photograph from the perspective of what I thought I was shooting at the time – and it wasn’t successful from that perspective – versus coming back to it with some aesthetic distance and seeing it for what it is. It also helped, I think, to lose some of the sky and present it as a 2:1 ratio panoramic format.

This was actually my first visit to this particular beach. I had driven past many times without stopping, but for some reason on this evening I pulled over and wandered down to the beach, shooting there and from the bluffs above the beach.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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keywords: beach, california, county, Dusk, evening, nature, pacific ocean, sand, Santa Cruz, seascape, seashore, sky, Sunset, travel, water, waves, winter, panther, rock, pacific, ocean, coast, shoreline, shore, nature, outdoor, hike, walk, scenic, landscape, bluff, cliff, stock, people, man, woman

People on MUNI Platform

People on MUNI Platform

People on MUNI Platform. San Francisco, California. May 26, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Street scene from an overhead perspective of several people waiting for the train on a MUNI platform in San Francisco.

There is a good chance that this photograph isn’t going to make a lot of sense to some of my friends who enjoy my landscape work – but it is actually one of my personal favorite recent photographs. There are several things that I like about it. For one, I actually like the mostly muted color palette of grays and blues, but with the warmer yellow stripes on the platform and the two odd “international orange” pylon bases. I also like the combination of a strong symmetry with a bunch of elements that are anything but perfect and symmetrical: the positions of the five figures, the paving stones with squares of dirt, the slightly off-angle barricades. I can also look at this as an abstract image of shapes, most of which are related in some way to rectangles. And then there is the interesting (to me, at least) arrangement of the people into three groups: the two guys on the right who seem to be looking up towards my camera position, the couple who appear to be gazing at each other, and the girl on the left who is facing the other direction and seemingly oblivious to her surroundings as she talks on the phone. I also like the transparent curving wall beyond the four figures at the right and the position of the two trash cans (trash cans!) between them and the girl.

You certainly don’t have to share my enthusiasm for this photograph, but perhaps you’ll understand a bit of what I think I see in it.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

keywords: man, woman, people, cell, phone, couple, gaze, trash, can, barricade, curve, roof, platform, cement, concrete, aggregate, tile, rail, track, muni, trail, transit, station, fence, curb, city, downtown, urban, street, paving, san francisco, california, usa, travel, stock, king, barrier, transparent, curve