On The Phone

On The Phone
A man leans against concrete wall to talk on his phone.

On The Phone. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A man leans against concrete wall to talk on his phone.

This area of San Francisco is a favorite of mine when doing street photography. There’s nothing remarkable about the street that would attract most viewers, but several things can give it photographic potential. Oddly, one feature is that there isn’t a lot there, at least not during the daytime, so people are either moving through quickly or else they are sort of hanging out like this fellow. There are also quite a few relatively plane and/or geometric surfaces here, plus the light is mostly soft and indirect.

The photograph is an example of how transient subjects and compositions can be in street photography. I spotted this guy talking on his phone from across the street. It was fairly easy to line up a composition that included him, but various things kept intruding on the scene. Passing cars momentarily blocked part of it, and other people walked through the scene. But after a few seconds of waiting — and a few other frames that intentionally included other passers-by — the stage was empty and I was able to make a photograph when he was the only person in the frame.


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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