G Dan Mitchell Photography

Jim M. Goldstein posted an article at his blog yesterday that deals with recent changes at Photoshelter and Digital Railroad, two sites that have provided galleries, archival storage, and sales/licensing resources for many photographers. Photoshelter (which I’ve checked out and which seems to have a lot of interesting resources to offer) recently changed their service, eliminate an important element of what they originally offered to photographers. Digital Railroad suddenly announced its shutdown with almost no notice earlier this week, leaving many photographers in the lurch. In both cases, it appears that these services ran into funding problems that interfered with their business plans. Follow the link back to Jim’s article to read more background on this.

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit recently as well. Being somewhat internet-savvy, I have worked with web hosting companies and more or less operated my own server applications, including the software that supports this blog/web site and other software that supports my gallery. This has not been without its problems. Ignoring for the moment the fact that hosting companies can also fail (keep good backups! of everything!), I ran into a serious customer support issue with my previous hosting company and had to move my entire web presence to another host (which seems to be doing a fine job, by the way) on very short notice. Although it is probably a story for another time, I’ll acknowledge that my choice to manage my own web presence cost me a ton of time during the past month, and has left me with some problems at this site that are still unresolved. (Notably a number of photos are now missing and, in some cases, stories are now linked to the wrong photographs.)

During this little web debacle that I’ve dealt with, I almost came to a decision to host my photographs at one of these commercial photography sites. I looked at three: pbase, zenfolio, and Photoshelter. While a full review is beyond the scope of this post, I will say that all three have a lot of worthwhile features to offer, the pricing seems reasonable to me, and I came “that close” to moving my photographs to one of the three. While it still could happen, at this point I’m going to sit tight for a while and see what happens to this segment of the photography industry first.

G Dan Mitchell :: Oct.31.2008 :: Commentary :: No Comments »

Pelican in Flight, Sunset. Pacific Coast, California. September 2, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A solitary pelican in flight at sunset over the Pacific Ocean coastline of California.

Yet another in the pelican series I shot along the California coast north of Santa Cruz on a September evening earlier this year. The glow of the sun on back of the pelican’s head and the light shining through its wings intrigue me, along with the very faint dividing line between the pastels shades of the ocean and the sky in the background.

To find out a bit more about where and how I made this series of photographs, take a look at yesterday’s post.

keywords: pelican, bird, sea, shore, pacific, ocean, coast, wildlife, nature, flight, fly, wings, california, usa, highway, one, evening, sunset, stock

G Dan Mitchell :: Oct.31.2008 :: Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean, Photographs: Wildlife :: No Comments »

Two Pelicans, Sunset. Pacific Coast, California. September 2, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two pelicans fly above the Pacific Ocean along the California coast at sunset.

I’ve posted photos from this set before, but since it has been a while I’ll share the story again. I had taken by son over to Santa Cruz, where he goes to school, and we decided to drive north up the coast in the early evening and look for photo opportunities. Although this section of the coast is always interesting, on this evening the first few places we stopped just didn’t present any obvious photographic opportunities. Finally I decided to just head for a roadside turnout that I had visited before. It is located right at the edge of the steep bluffs above the ocean, and large sea birds often fly right along the edge, apparently catching the updraft from the wind coming in off the ocean. You can see the birds coming for hundreds of yards in either direction, track them as the approach, and if you are lucky they will pass by mere feet from your position.

Making this setting more interesting and/or more challenging on this evening, the sun was setting behind a bit of off-shore fog – and as I panned to follow the birds the exposure went from fairly normal light on either side of my position to the intensely colorful and very bright light coming through the fog when I was aiming directly out to see as in this photo.

Yes, it really was this color.

keywords: pelican, two, bird, wildlife, fly, wing, sunset, fog, orange, gold, ocean, pacific, coast, light, highway, one, scenic, travel, flight, california, usa, davenport

G Dan Mitchell :: Oct.30.2008 :: Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean, Photographs: Wildlife :: 1 Comment »

Fletcher Lake Trees, Morning Light. Yosemite National Park, California. September 8, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early morning light illuminates lakeside trees, meadow, and rocks at Fletcher Lake, Yosemite National Park, California.

Years ago, before the park service became (justifiably) more concerned about the damage that hikers and campers causes to meadows, one might have camped among these trees near the shoreline of Fletcher Lake, near Vogelsang High Sierra Camp in the Yosemite high country. I first visited Fletcher that long ago, and I still return every summer, typically near the end of the season when the meadow grasses turn brown and golden and when the crowds diminish. This photograph was made on just such a trip this past September, when the morning light was just coming around the side of Fletcher Peak.

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G Dan Mitchell :: Oct.29.2008 :: Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite :: No Comments »

Half Dome, Sunset – Olmsted Point. Yosemite National Park, California. September 8, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sunset light on Half Dome as viewed from Olmsted Point along the Tioga Pass Road.

Sometimes I can’t help myself and I have to stop for this classic view when driving back from the Sierra via Tioga Pass Road. I drive past this spot at least a dozen times each season, so I’ve perhaps become a bit jaded – and I’ll only stop when the light seems extra special.

Here the very late light is illuminating Half Dome while the lower canyons have fallen into deep shadows on this late summer evening.

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G Dan Mitchell :: Oct.28.2008 :: Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite :: No Comments »

Pond, Bishop Creek. Sierra Nevada, California. October 5, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Autumn colors reflected in a pond on Bishop Creek, Sierra Nevada, California.

After starting my shooting very early in the morning – I had earlier photographed some groves near the turnoff to North Lake and some expansive views of Sabrina Basin from near Aspendell – I continued up the Bishop Creek drainage to this small pond along the upper reaches of Bishop Creek. As I set up in this spot along the southeast shore of the creek, the sun was just beginning to come over the high ridge behind me. As it did so it illuminated the aspen grove on the far side of the creek and added a glow to the dry ferns and creekside plants. I worked quickly and got a few shots as the sun/shade line moved across the trees and plants and soon hit the creek itself.

keywords: pond, water, creek, bishop, shore, bank, shoreline, reflection, mirror, moss, algae, aspen, fir, pine, tree, grove, forest, trunk, branch, leaf, yellow, gold, orange, green, grass, meadow, fern, nature, scenic, travel, fall, autumn, season, landscape, sierra, nevada, california, usa, stock, mountains

G Dan Mitchell :: Oct.27.2008 :: Photographs: Sierra Nevada :: 3 Comments »

North Lake, Autumn. Sierra Nevada, California. October 4, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Autumn at North Lake with aspen trees turning yellow and orange and new snow dusting Piute Peak.

Photographed right after the passage of an early season weather front that had dusted Piute Peak with a bit of snow – in fact, it is still snowing up there in this photograph. This photo was made at the lower end of the lake it what is one of the classic photograph spots at North Lake, or so it seems. The next morning I came back to this lake to photograph a nearby aspen grove and I passed by here thinking I might stop and photograph the lake again. That is, I thought so until I passed the spot and saw photographers lining the shoreline here tripod to tripod – I’ve never seen so many photographers trying to find their own personal vision from exactly the same spot at the same time before… ;-) Needless to say, I settled for the photos of the lake I had made the day before, when high winds and intermittent snow seemed to reduce the number of photographers to a more reasonable level.

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G Dan Mitchell :: Oct.26.2008 :: Photographs: Sierra Nevada :: No Comments »