Images

Photographs: Germany, Photographs: People, Photographs: Urban/Street

Red Wall

Image September 12, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A person walks in front of a painted section of the Berlin Wall

Before I say much about this photograph, a bit of background. Near the start of August 2018 we departed from California’s West Coast on a trip that would last forty days. We started with a brief visit to New York City, followed by another brief visit to London — both great places to visit and to adapt more slowly to the time zone changes. From there we made a rough loop that took us to Amsterdam, Berlin, Nuremberg (briefly!), Bayreuth (site of the famous Wagner festival), Heidelberg (for rest and recuperation… and laundry!), Vienna, Paris, and then a week outside of Paris near Barbizon with family. Whew! It was a great trip, with a few familiar places and some that were new to us. Along the way we had lots of opportunities to make photographs, and I’ll be starting to share some of them over the next few weeks and months.

We had three full days (four nights) in Berlin, a city that neither of us had visited before. We don’t travel with tour groups, so we were mostly on our own to explore, and most of our exploring was done on foot. On our last full day we headed east from where we were staying, eventually making our way to the “East Side Gallery.” This is a large section of the Berlin Wall that was not knocked down, but instead turned into a vast canvas for artists. My approach to photographing such a thing isn’t precisely to photograph the art itself, but instead to try to place it in its surroundings and/or photograph people interacting with it — which is the case with this man dressed in red who walked in front of this red section of the former “red” wall.

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Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Desert Ridges and Haze

Image September 11, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Layers of desert ridges extend into distant haze

Desert landscapes are, in some ways, what I think of as the most “pure” landscapes. Their aridity means that there is rarely much to obscure the actual geology of these places — no forests, no grassy meadows, few bodies of water. The landscape is laid bare.

The colors, textures, and patterns of rock and soil are revealed, and the changing light paints this landscape in remarkable ways. The colors change throughout the day depending upon the height of the sun, the color of surfaces reflecting the light, and the clarity of the sky. The atmosphere itself changes the landscape — crystal clear air reveals distant features as if they were close by, while air filled with blowing sand and dust obscures detail and focuses attention on larger elements of the scene.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Geese, Clearing Fog, Light

Image September 10, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A band of light through thinning fog falls across a flock of geese

I’m often surprised that many people who love the outdoors in the warmer months don’t spend more time outdoors in the winter. At least in my part of the world, the light is often much more varied and compelling this time of year — with dramatic storm clouds, mysterious fog, beams of light appearing, and more. And, in practical terms, I’d rather have to layer up to stay warm than contend with too much heat!

In addition, in much of the United States this is the season to find large flocks of migrating birds. If you only go out in the warm season… you might never see them! Fortunately I learned this lesson a few decades ago. I had lived in California for a long time, but I had no idea about the birds of the flyway until one long drive far up into Northern California in late autumn when I first saw the huge flocks in twilight sky.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Blue Goose Among The White

Image September 9, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A solitary “blue goose” in a flock of white (mostly) Ross’s geese

A “blue goose” was something I had heard of but didn’t understand — like the “blue moon.” (Yes, I do now know what that is, too!) A few years ago I ran into a wildlife refuge employee while photographing and we got to talking. He remembered that he had seen an unusual bird earlier that day, and he offered to take me to see the “blue goose.”

That sounded crazy. I had never seen or heard of a goose that was blue in color. (That said, in the right light, the whitest geese can appear to be blue in photographs. I’ll explain some other time…) We came to a large flock of the usual white geese and he pointed into the mob of birds and said, “There it is!” At first I couldn’t spot it but eventually I saw that one of the geese was considerably darker than the rest of the flock. I photographed the goose in this photograph on a different occasion — you should be able to spot the anomalously darker blue goose in the middle of the scene. For the record, the “blue goose” is not a separate type of goose — it is one of the common types, but in an unusual color “morph.”

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G Dan Mitchell Photography

Images

Red Wall

Desert Ridges and Haze

Geese, Clearing Fog, Light

Blue Goose Among The White

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