Two walkers pass a flowering dogwood tree in Central Park.
Photos are temporarily being shared without additional commentary. Watch for commentary to resume in late summer.
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.
Walkers pass through an area of lawns and large spring trees in Central Park, Manhattan.
This photograph — almost certainly the last from my end-of-March visit to Manhattan — has been sitting in the queue for weeks as I’ve shared others. I made it during a brief bit of lovely spring sun at the end of a long weekend of nearly constant rain. In part, I scheduled this New York visit when I did because I had been told that “New York is beautiful in spring.” (We almost always visit in December or August, arguably among the worst months!) Until this final morning, when the sun came out for a few hours, I wasn’t so sure about that “beautiful spring” claim.
I stayed a few blocks from the lower end of Central Park, so even on the rainy days I joined the throngs of New Yorkers and fellow visitors for walks in the park. I’ll admit that it was a beautiful and moody place in the rainy weather — but not very comfortable! After three days of rain, this morning was extra beautiful.
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.
Two pedestrians stroll past buildings in Le Marais, Paris.
I went back and forth on whether this should be a color or a black and white photograph. (We’re so lucky today that we can make this kind of choice after pressing the shutter release!) In the end, everything about the scene seemed to me to call for monochrome… though I did have to give up the colors of the flowers growing in the row of window boxes.
I think this is one of those “photographs of nothing special” that evokes the feeling of the place. I have nothing at all against specialness in a photograph — it is often something to strive for! — but that can give us a less than true sense of the subject. This photograph is also an example of how being ready to “capture” a fleeting moment is so important in street photography… and, for that matter, in many other sorts of photography too.
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.
Pedestrians in an Upper East Side crosswalk on a very cold winter day in Manhattan
Another freezing day in New York, another visit to a museum, another walk, and more photography. This time our plan was to visit the Guggenheim, on the Upper East Side along Central Park. Because we tend to stay on Pacific time when we go to New York — instead of my usual 5:30 wakeup time, I wake around 8:30 — we ended up stalling on various little tasks until nearly noon. Then we stopped for coffee, followed by a walk to a subway at our Lower Manhattan location, and then a subway ride up to a stop on Lexington to the east of the Guggenheim. We arrived to find that lots of other people apparently had the same idea — there was a long line snaking around the corner. We joined the line, in 20 degree temperatures, and then simultaneously noticed that the line wasn’t moving and that we were increasingly freezing. We gave up, and headed east to find a warm place to get something to eat.
After lunch — soup, of course! — we set out again, but with no particular goal in mind. We headed south on Lexington, with a plan starting to form that would take us over to and perhaps through part of Central Park before we picked up another subway train at the lower end of the park. As we walked down Lexington we were headed straight into the sun, and its headlong light made the atmosphere glow, bounced light off of building windows, and cast long shadows from the approaching pedestrians on the crowded sidewalk and crosswalk.
