Category Archives: Photographs: New York City

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Steps, Red Door In Sun

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Steps, Red Door In Sun
Manhattan residence building with steps and a sunlit red door

Steps, Red Door In Sun. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Manhattan residence building with steps and a sunlit red door

It is hard to resist a red door in morning sunlight. :-) The photograph comes from 2014, on one of our frequent visits to New York City to visit family, eat a lot of food, and do street photography. When in New York (and sometimes other boroughs including Brooklyn and Queens) we walk a lot. We’ve been known to walk into Manhattan from Brooklyn, or walk all the way up from the lower end of Manhattan to and into Central Park.

While I don’t recall the specifics of this photograph (though I think I have a general sense of where we were) I know we were out for one of those walks. I’m also pretty certain that this was more or less a quick shot as we walked past this little residential area. The reason this photograph show up now is one of those serendipitous stories. A week or two ago someone asked me a slightly technical photography question. I thought that I might be able to illustrate an answer by using an urban photograph made with a somewhat wide-angle lens, so I began to wade back into older New York photographs to see what I could find. In the end I never used any of them to respond to the question, but I did find a set of four-year-old raw files that I must have neglected to consider at the time.

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Tortaria

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Tortaria
A woman walks past a Manhattan tortaria with a red pickup truck parked in front.

Tortaria. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A woman walks past a Manhattan tortaria with a red pickup truck parked in front.

I made this photograph about four years ago, and the brief tale of how emerged now is perhaps worth telling. Recently I was involved in a discussion of tilt/shift lenses. Part of the discussion drifted to image changes that could be made in post-processing rather than by using shift to correct converging perspective lines. I went looking for example files I could use, especially those that might have been shot with a very wide lens and in need of correction. I figured that urban photographs would provide good examples, so I started digging into my New York raw files. Eventually I ended up back in 2014… and to my surprise I found a group of images that I had almost completely forgotten about and which I never finished reviewing and processing.

Four years later I don’t even remember making this photograph, nor do I remember the location. (I could figure it out easily enough.) I’m betting that the initial attraction was to the contrast between the bright red pickup truck (and all of the things that it can symbolize) and the teal-colored front of the Tortaria. It may have been good fortune that the woman walked into the left side of the frame at this moment. I like the juxtaposition of the red and green-blue colors and the potential cultural and other symbolism of the big, red pickup truck.

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Xing School

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Xing School
Street crossing marking on the roadway in Chinatown, Manhattan

Xing School. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Street crossing marking on the roadway in Chinatown, Manhattan

I’m going to divert briefly from the Death Vally photographs today and return to a much different place, the urban world of New York City. I made this photograph about four years ago and only rediscovered it today. Sometimes as I work my way though files after returning from such a location I get interrupted by another project and occasionally I leave work unprocessed. I think that is what happened in this case, as this wasn’t the only photograph in the batch that I had overlooked. (I only went back to these images because I was looking for something to use as an example in a reply to someone’s technical question.)

The location is Manhattan’s Chinatown, and I’m pretty sure it is a section of my favorite street in this neighborhood. (I have a kind of informal project of photographing this East Coast location and its West Coast equivalent in San Francisco.) I did something a bit unusual with my post-processing interpretation of the image. I suspect that it may not be obvious to viewers, but I played with the color levels and actually diminished their intensity quite a bit — I think this provides a little different sense of the quality of this location.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: People, Photographs: Urban/Street

Layers, Contre-Jour

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Layers, Contre-Jour
People sitting in Metropolitan Museum windows, plus worlds on both sides

Layers, Contre-Jour. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People sitting in Metropolitan Museum windows, plus worlds on both sides

This is yet another take on the scene in this room at the New York Metropolitan Museum, on a cold day when hordes of people went to a warm museum instead of wandering outside. The window faces south, into the midday and afternoon sun, and the window sills provided an inviting and warm place for people to sit. I spend a bit of time here and observed as people passed by, came in and sat down, and moved on.

There may be more going on here than is immediately apparent. The first impression is of a half-dozen people sitting in or near the windows, with outdoor backlight providing the illumination. (Hence the “contre-jour” indication in the title of the photograph.) But there are several other layers. In the far distance Manhattan buildings near the south end of Central Park, whose trees are providing silhouetted shapes below the skyline. There are also reflections from the interior of this room in the windows — keep in mind that elements near my camera position were front-lit by the windows. There is actually quite a crowd reflected in the windows, and if you look closely you can even spot the photographer.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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