Category Archives: Photographs: Architecture

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Night, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Video Surveillance

August 2, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Warning sign on a doorway to an interior space, Chinatown, San Francisco

When doing street photography I tend to “switch modes” as I photograph — one moment I might focus on people as individuals or in groups, and then my attention may shift to the “urban landscape,” the shapes and angles of the buildings and roads and sidewalks and more. At night there is always one more element, the unusual effects of artificial light on the scene. The light can be wildly diverse: Greenish from fluorescent lamps, yellow from sodium vapor, warm and saturated from tungsten, almost like daylight though perhaps cooler from LEDs, and occasionally the colors of dusk or the moon.

LED lighting, while wonderfully efficient, is not so wonderful for night photography. Since it mirrors the color balance of daylight so closely it takes away all of those color shadings. Some times it almost makes a night photograph look like day! I made this photograph shortly after I met up with a group of other photographers to walk through this section of San Francisco. At first I was focused in small things — windows, doorways, colorful business signs. As we descended one side street we passed this somewhat nondescript building, but in the nighttime light the interior glowed with an oddly colored light.

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Night, Photographs: People, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Man With Flag

July 31, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A man with a flag organizes a group of tourists on a San Francisco street

I think this is another “there’s more going on here than you might first realize” photographs. Yes, there is a man marching out of this store carrying a small flag, but why? The answer to that question is pretty easy — he is apparently leading a group of tourists through this part of San Francisco, and the flag is his way of letting them know who to follow. (You’ll see this phenomenon in almost any city or other area that is popular with tourists.) But there is something else interesting — at last to me — about this photograph. Many of the people in the scene have apparently just become aware of me and are looking my direction, apparently not quite certain how to respond just yet. (I’m discreet, so I probably didn’t have the camera to my face, and it isn’t a large camera.)

Pools of light like this one are prime spots for me when shooting urban areas at night. I love the way the light spills out onto the sidewalk, creating shadows leading away from the people. I can also play with this light. I might shoot straight into it and make shadow the main subject. Or I can sometimes get just a bit between the subjects and the light, and then it can light them quite beautifully, especially when there are multiple light sources. If I recall correctly, it was the light and then the bricks that first caught my eyes here, and then when the people appeared in the doorway the photograph was complete.

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Chicago

Less Than All There

July 11, 2015 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

A downtown Chicago Building

Recently I have been revisiting some urban photography from nearly a year ago, when we spent time in Chicago and then in New York City. Expect a few more of these photographs over the next few days, a number of which may focus on small details of the urban landscape.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Germany

Flowers, Light, Shadow

July 5, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An urban garden scene in a friend’s yard

I have had this little photograph open in my image editing program for some time now, waiting to post it online. It is a simple photograph, but I connect it to several things that have some meaning to me. The scene is in the tiny yard at the home of relatives in Heidelberg, Germany, whose hospitality we enjoyed over a two-week period a couple of summers ago. On this evening we had gone outside, if I recall correctly, to eat and have some wine when I noticed this diagonal beam of light passing over the surface of the white wall and forming a shadow. As someone once wrote, “There is always something to see,” and photographs are potentially anywhere.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Architecture

Video Surveillance

Man With Flag

Less Than All There

Flowers, Light, Shadow

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.