Repairing a Shop Window. San Francisco, California. July 25, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
At closing time, a man works to repair a shop window.
On a summer walk through sections of downtown San Francisco, beginning in the late afternoon and continuing after dark, I passed a street-corner shop that was just about to close. These shops, being in an area where such things are necessary, is blocked off at night by metal shutters. An employee was standing in a display window, repairing the shutters.
The man, focused on his work and seemingly unaware that he was now the featured “product” in this display window, was my initial subject. But I quickly saw other things in this scene. On the right side of the frame the wild explosion of colorful merchandise, lights, and reflections of the street behind me is almost impossible to figure out. On the left side there seems to be no reflection and the colors are more subdued, with the open shutters placing a horizontal grid over the dark figure of the store employee. Horizontals on the left; verticals on the right; complexity everywhere.
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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