Images

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Treeline Landscape

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Treeline Landscape
Glaciated slabs, meadows, stunted trees and higher peaks near treeline in the Sierra Nevada

Treeline Landscape. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Glaciated slabs, meadows, stunted trees and higher peaks near treeline in the Sierra Nevada.

A recent post from Scot Miller, one of the photographers on this backcountry photographic excursion, reminded me that I still had at least one more photograph of my own from this summer 2019 trip into the John Muir Wilderness. This scene was steps from my campsite for a week in this 11,000′ valley, a week during which we had a chance to thoroughly explore and photograph the area.

When I go through my photographs following such a trip there is an almost inevitable cycle to how I work with the photographs. Often I come back with a few specific images that I recall making and looking forward to post-processing… and I typically work these up first. Then I go back through the work and “discover” additional images that I might have paid less attention to but which immediately catch my attention. Eventually I continue to work through the archive and I begin to find more subtle photographs that I like for a range of reasons. This one, to me, has a kind of quiet quality that I like, in part because it suggests the stillness of these locations, but also because it conveys, I think, the contrast between the intimate, such as that nearby tree, and the immense, such as that distant eastern escarpment cliff face.

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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Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Looking Down

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Looking Down
Street patterns observed while using a crosswalk.

Looking Down. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Street patterns observed while using a crosswalk.

The sight of me making this photograph might have raised a few eyebrows, made a few observers wonder… though, in truth, I tried to make it in a sneaky fashion. The basic idea was that the conjunction of colors, textures, and shapes caught my eye as I was entering a crosswalk in downtown San Francisco at a rather crowded time of day… so I pointed my camera straight down and made an exposure.

I’m naturally attracted to patterns and shapes and juxtapositions, so I see things like this everywhere, at least when I have my visual senses engaged. To be sure, more of my street photographs include people, but these urban colors and patterns have a place in it as well.

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

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

Photographs: Night, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Outside The Vesuvio Cafe

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Outside The Vesuvio Cafe, San Francisco
“Outside The Vesuvio Cafe” — A lone man stands outside the entrance to a cafe in a graffiti-covered San Francisco alley at night

The end of Daylight Savings Time — which I look forward to every year! — opens up additional night opportunities for me, especially with it comes to night street photography. I live close enough to San Francisco that I can get there and back by rail, which is often a better option than driving, provided that I can return before it gets too late. Now that the sun is setting at close to 5:00 PM I have time to photograph twilight and early darkness — typically the best time for this sort of photography — and still catch a reasonably early train.

This week I took advantage of this change for the first time this fall, arriving inThe City to in the early afternoon, photographing for a few hours in (fog-muted) daylight, and then sticking around as day changed to night. Photographing in such a location is almost visually overwhelming. There are details everywhere — people, shops, passing traffic, buildings, and more — and it can be hard to make visual sense out of them. Everything is in a constant state of motion, so there is often little time to carefully consider a photograph. Instead, I operate by instinct, working quickly and knowing that only a small percentage of exposures will be worthwhile. As I walked up toward the North Beach area I looked up an alley and spotted this fellow standing alone in this graffiti-covered alley as the artificial lighting began to supplant the natural light.

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.

Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Shall We Dance?

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Shall We Dance?
Two sandhill cranes begin their dance ritual.

Shall We Dance? © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two sandhill cranes begin their dance ritual.

From what I’ve read and observed, the striking “dancing” behavior of sandhill cranes is often (but not necessarily always?) part of a mating ritual. If you watch a large flock of the birds — or are lucky when viewing a smaller group, as I was here — you will quickly spot this behavior as it stands out from the other, largely passive behavior of the birds. (They mostly appear to either stand there, eat, or walk slowly.) A couple of birds approach one another, wings open up, and they hop straight up into the air.

When I photographed this group I was near a well-known crane observation location in California’s Central Valley. (Some of those are fine places to see these magnificent birds, especially if they are new to you.) However, I had moved away from that spot and was out looking for birds elsewhere when I came upon a group that was standing in the remnants of a field whose crops had been knocked down. I stopped, stood behind my car so as to be less likely to disturb the birds, and began watching and photographing.

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.

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