Tag Archives: car

Red Things

Red Things
Red awning and car, Portland, Oregon

Red Things. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Red awning and car, Portland, Oregon

Over the next week or so I plan to sneak in a few photographs from the urban world that I’ve had lying around here for a while. This one comes from a trip to Portland, Oregon a few years ago.

If this photograph is “about” something, it might be the color red. Sometimes in urban areas when my photographer brain is fully engaged, I move away from seeing “things” and instead see imagery that may be based on all sorts of elements. I’m pretty sure that I can make those who are with me wonder about my sanity by noting things like, “Look, the car, the paint, and the awning are all red! Too bad it isn’t parked in a red zone!”


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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Abandoned

Abandoned
Abandoned vehicles at a desert mining site.

Abandoned. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Abandoned vehicles at a desert mining site.

When you travel even a bit in the desert landscape (at least the California version that I know) you will come across evidence that you are not the first visitor. The original residents left behind fragile, compelling, and sometimes beautiful evidence in the form of rock art. (Treat them with respect, leave them as you found them, and don’t share their locations.) Later immigrants left traces that seem less attuned to the nature of the place. But over time, as they weather and degrade, they start to almost seem to be part of the landscape, and they make us pause and imagine coming to such a place to live and work. (Surprisingly, perhaps, some of these sites are only decades old.)

A bit of exploration in Death Valley National Park reveals many examples. Some, like this one, are not hard to find, and they may feel like intrusions in the landscape. Others are more remote and sometimes not immediately obvious. One of the most powerful experiences I had in this landscape came on my first visit years ago, when I wandered up a large fan and sat on a rock to rest. I happened to look down and notice one stone among the others — one that had been shaped for a purpose many years ago. I picked it up, turned it over in my hands, and tried to imagine the life of the person whose hands had shaped it. I put it back where I found it and returned to camp.


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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

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

Urban Scene from Pandemia

Urban Scene from Pandemia
Vehicles and an old house in Pendemia

Urban Scene from Pandemia. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Vehicles and an old house in Pendemia.

Our world, and welcome to it. For the great majority of us, normal activities have been put on hold, including our regular trips into the natural landscape to make photographs. Some possibilities are opening back up — I’m hoping to visit redwoods and the coast before too much longer. But as case numbers tick back up, it becomes clearer that we are not going back to “normal” for a while.

So I walk. All over my local neighborhood, generally in perhaps a two or tow-and-a-half mile radius. One thing I can be grateful for — though probably not the only thing — is that I’m “discovering” neighborhoods and features within walking distance that I would not otherwise have seen.


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.

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

Green Building, Berlin

Green Building, Berlin
A street scene in Berlin with a green building

Green Building, Berlin. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A street scene in Berlin with a green building.

Since I’m not an expert in architecture I probably don’t have the correct description terms at my fingertips, but this area of Berlin that lies just on the “East German” side of the old Berlin wall still seems to be characterized by what I’ve heard described as Soviet-Style architecture… but with a few interesting exceptions. Many of the large buildings here have, at least to my eye, that functional, modern, practical look of the 1950s and 196 0s — a kind of modernism that no longer looks all that modern

This green structure — whose purpose I did not investigate — is striking against this background and in this location literally across the street from The Wall. It appears to have been conglomerated from shipping containers, creating an ad hoc and temporary quality. (It isn’t the only example of such things I saw in Europe and the UK.) It sits at an odd angle, out of sync with both the surrounding grid of roadways and the backdrop of more “square” buildings. And that color!


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 | FacebookEmail

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.