It is always very difficult to select a set of my annual “favorite” photographs. I inevitably find that I have left out photographs that others like a great deal, and I know that I include some that Ilike but which may not appeal as much to others. And I always want to include more! :-)
With that in mind, here is a group of slightly more than twenty favorite photographs that I made in 2011. Criteria for inclusion, loosely and subjectively applied, included: a desire to include a wide range of my work, what others told me they liked, photographs that have positive personal associations for me, and element of randomness.
There is a story behind every photograph that I make. (As anyone who has talked to me about one of my photographs probably knows – I can go on… and on… and on… about any of them!) If you want to know more about any of the photographs, you can click on them to go to the original posts here at the blog. And I’d love to hear your reactions to the set, along with any questions you have – there is a place for comments at the bottom of the page.
Yellow Buildings, Shadows, Moving Clouds - Night photograph of two large yellow buildings, shadows, and streaks for clouds moving across the sky above the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, California.
This youtube video includes all of the photographs posted at my blog during 2011.* Yes, all of them! The photographs appear more or less in the order they were made, so this forms a sort of year-long overview. Since it does include everything, there are going to be a few, uh, slow moments in the video. (I do not recommend viewing at full screen size on large monitors since the original images used in the video were relatively small.)
If this is a slow day for you, you could even watch the whole thing!
I put this together while doing initial work on the 2001 Favorites list, an annual project of assembling a set of what I regard as some of my best work of the past year. I have some ideas about which images will make the cut for that more limited set, but I’d love to hear your opinions about what you think should be included, too. I’ll post the “finalists” for the 2011 Favorites sometime in the next week or so.
* OK, I made a lot more photographs in 2011 than what you see here. But most will never be seen in public. :-)
(Update: A few people asked “why no music to accompany the photographs?” This brings up a whole series of thoughts that I should explore in depth at some point, but which I’ll mention briefly for now. Let me get the easy one out of the way first – this wasn’t meant to be a “real” production. It was just a way for me to string together a large number of images as part of my own review of my 2011 photographs. On to the more complex issues…
Some of you may know that my academic training is in music. So, for me, adding music to images is not a simple thing – I’m afraid that I’m cursed with thinking “too much” about what it means and how it works together. For me, the idea of just “adding some music” is not a simple idea at all. In fact, it raises some questions about why we think that individual photographs are worthy of consideration in silence… but sequences of them seem to raise expectations that a musical accompaniment will be provided. Finally, given the diverse images in this large set it is hard for me to come up with a meaningful musical accompaniment that somehow ties in with the images in more than a random way. I suppose that I really need to compose my own… )
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
The moon, in full lunar eclipse, passes behind the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.
This is the second of two photographs of this week’s full lunar eclipse that I will share. The earlier one was a horizontal format version of roughly the same subject. Here the fully eclipsed setting moon passed behind the upper portion of the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, as seen from the San Francisco Bay shoreline in the Crissy Field area. There was just a bit of pre-dawn light in the sky at this point, and within a few minutes of making this photograph the combination of increasing ambient light, the generally hazy atmosphere, and the moon dropping into high, off-shore clouds brought the show to a fairly quick conclusion.
I was stunned by the number of other photographers out at this very early hour, even considering that it was within the city of San Francisco. I had originally tried Treasure Island, in the bay between San Francisco and Oakland. There were quite a few photographers lined up there at 5:00 a.m., but I did not like the potential positioning of the moon relative to likely foreground features near the horizon, so I didn’t stick around. Instead, I made a guess based on my knowledge of the area that there was a good chance that the moon might line up with the Golden Gate Bridge from vantage points in the Fort Mason, Crissy Field, and Fort Point areas. I drove over there quickly and was surprised to find the parking lots were nearly full and tripod-laden photographers walking about or already set up. I grabbed the first decent parking space, loaded up my gear, and started walking west, figuring that I could get to the likely spot on foot quite quickly.
A second surprise was that the ideal location, which wasn’t hard to find at all, was far less crowded than the areas closer to the parking lot. I was even able to find a spot or two where I could set up apart from other photographers and wait – for only a few moments by this time – for the moon to intersect with the bridge.
Another view of this subject in landscape orientation is posted here.
An interesting side note: Photographer Florian Kainz later shared his eclipse shot with me and asked if I might be the photographer standing in front of the bridge. Yes. That’s me! With Florian’s permission I have included a small version of his photo here – follow the links back to see his full-sized post at Flickr. He has given me permission to share his photograph here. Thanks, Florian!
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Moon, in full lunar eclipse, drops behind the Golden Bridge South Tower, San Francisco, California.
Very (very!) early this morning I joined the surprisingly large throng of photographers out to shoot the lunar eclipse in the San Francisco area. I was up and out the door shortly after 4:00 a.m. and heading toward San Francisco. My first thought was to see if I could get an interesting composition with the moon over the San Francisco skyline by shooting from Treasure Island, in the bay between the City and Oakland. I arrived there while it was still very dark and found that lots of other photographers (and a motorcycle club!) were already on the scene. The photographers included to semi-astronomy types with the really, really big lenses and plenty of others.
The problem was immediately apparent. Even though the moon was still fairly high in the sky, it was apparent that it was going to set far to the right of San Francisco. I might have been able to find a workable spot on the island, but I still wasn’t sure the moon would be in a good spot once it got close to setting. At this point I decided to try a “plan B,” and I felt that there was a pretty good idea that I could make something work in the Crissy Field area. So I hopped back in the car, passed through downtown San Francisco, and arrived at the Crissy Field area…
… only to find out that I was most certainly not the only photographer thinking of using this location! There were hundreds of tripod-lugging photographers lined up a long the shoreline! My main idea at this point was to find a location from which the setting moon would pass above and then behind the bridge. So I headed off quickly towards the area where I thought this juxtaposition might be available. Soon I found it, and just as the sky was beginning to lighten up a bit and shedding a bit of natural light on the bridge. It was still quite challenging to get even a workable shot. The wind was blowing stiffly, making the necessary long exposures a bit tricky. In the end I think I got one or two that are interesting.
A vertical format version of this scene is posted here – I still haven’t decided which I prefer!
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
