Category Archives: Photographs: New York City

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Scrim, Bars, Shadows

February 11, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Winter tree branches cast soft shadows on scrim window covering

I was tempted to write little or nothing about this photograph and just let it stand as is. But that would break with my tradition of posting something about every photograph! (Apologies to those of you who aren’t fans of the writing! ;-) The subject is the conjunction of a shadow and the bars of a window.

The photograph illustrates, perhaps, the usefulness of bringing a camera along even in situations where photography isn’t your main goal. We were in New York for a week in late December, and on this freezing cold winter day we did what so many do on such days — we headed for the warmth of a museum, in this case the Metropolitan Museum. Our primary goal was to see the large David Hockney show, but there were other things to see as well. At one point, while considering what to do next, we ended up in a familiar gallery off in the distant reaches of this large and confusing museum. At one end of the room was a stairwell. Southwest facing windows were covered with a sort of scrim that muted the direct light, and winter-bare tree branches cast shadows on it.

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

Pedestrians, Lexington Avenue

February 8, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pedestrians cast shadows as they walk past reflecting windows on a Lexington Avenue sidewalk, Manhattan

I think that so-called street photography (which might be termed “urban landscape” photography) can do many things. Some try to constrain it, offering limiting definitions that call for monochrome, handheld cameras, photographs featuring people, and a certain direct approach to dystopian unpleasantness. While it can be that, it can be other things, too. The focus can be the light, the geometry, the individual and collective people, oddities, visual beauty, the constructed environment, and much, much more. And (despite this example!) there is nothing requiring it to be black and white and look like it was created with the photographic technologies of any particular era.

In this case, my thoughts were mostly about shapes and light when I made this photograph. (That doesn’t mean that we aren’t free to make other associations.) On this date, close to the winter solstice, the light shines obliquely up streets like this one in Manhattan, and because this section of Lexington is relatively wide and in an area with few really tall buildings, quite a bit of that light finds its way down to the street and sidewalk. As I walked into this light, I was looking for certain effects that are mostly found in such urban environments, especially the multi-directional light produced when the direct sunlight combines with light reflected from buildings and windows.

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

Manhattan Graffiti

January 29, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Detail of graffiti in Lower Manhattan

I’m often a bit uneasy about photographing graffiti. For one thing, I feel just a bit like I’m simply recording someone else’s “work” when I do this. For another, I have some concerns about contributing to the visibility of what is, at least in some cases, essentially vandalism. In many cases I have decided to not photograph such things. In others I made photographs and then chose not to share them. In yet other situations I have distorted/modified identifiable “tags” in post so as to avoid being seen to promote vandals. But sometimes graffiti is more than just vandalism. It sometimes rises to the level of art, it isn’t unusual for its themes to present some information about places and times, the colors and forms can be interesting, and the weathering and layering of successive examples can produce unanticipated effects.

I’m pretty certain that I photographed this tiny section of a large bit of street are while walking somewhere in lower Manhattan or perhaps as far us as the Chinatown/Little Italy area. I was on the move on the day I made the photograph, not lingering very long in any one place, so my recollection is that I saw it, photographed it, and moved on. The color palette of this image usually would not attract me, but somehow here it did – perhaps because it seemed somewhat atypical of such street art.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Barbershop, Manhattan

January 27, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Barbershop storefront in the Chinatown section of Manhattan

As I continue my somewhat binary posting pattern — street and urban photography one day, with nature, wildlife, and landscape the next — today I’m back in New York City, during out end-of-year December 2017 week spent there, visiting family, eating, walking, and doing photography. Oh, and freezing. We managed to arrive just before a bout of exceptionally cold weather — at least for these Californians — during which daytime temperatures didn’t always make it into the twenties. It didn’t snow until the final day, but it surely was cold enough.

The cold didn’t keep us indoors, though. We were out every day, walking through as much of Manhattan as we could. A typically walk started near our hotel at the end of Lower Manhattan and (if we didn’t get a head start on the subway) worked its way north along any of several paths. Eventually the cold and wind would become too much, and we would stop for coffee or food, then head back out. On one morning our uptown-bound route took us into the narrow streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown, a place I always like to see. (On our previous visit we stayed for a week on essentially the boundary between Chinatown and Little Italy.) Things here are often a bit ragged around the edges and it can be crowded, but there is plenty to see. The dense patterns of people walking the streets, the interiors of shops, the scenes on the sidewalks are all interesting.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: New York City

Scrim, Bars, Shadows

Pedestrians, Lexington Avenue

Manhattan Graffiti

Barbershop, Manhattan

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