Category Archives: Photographs: New York City

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Urban Life, Manhattan

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Urban Life, Manhattan
Urban Life, Manhattan

Urban Life, Manhattan. New York City. August 7, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A woman sits in the sun on a stone bench against the wall of an urban building and beneath the shadows of lights and a security camera

I often wonder at the urban environment and how some places seem completely disconnected from the natural world that is how home. (No, I’m not an anti-urban or anti-city person, and I really love visiting New York. But still…) The almost entirely constructed environment is, in many ways, a marvel. The noise, the people, the constant motion can all be energizing. But eventually, at least for me, I reach my limit and I need a quiet time out to recover. And from time to time I need to completely escape from places like this.

I was just below Central Park one morning, where I had gone with a plan in mind of walking the perimeter of the park and photographing. (I almost completed this goal before the day ended, but ran out of time just a bit short of where I had started, when I realized that I was to meet up with some other people.) Before starting up the east side of the park I first went south a bit looking for breakfast and coffee, and I found this small courtyard near when I ate. I saw several things here that drew me to make a photograph — the solitary figure on the bench looking out of the frame, how small the position of her body and her position within the frame makes here appear, the cold and lifeless nature of the space in which she sits, the slightly ominous lights and their shadows above, and the even more ominous small security camera at upper right, probably watching and recording everything… including me as I made my photograph.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Wall, Man Walking

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Wall, Man Walking
Wall, Man Walking

Wall, Man Walking. New York City. August 10, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A man walks on a painted sidewalk in Manhattan, New York City

I made this little “grab shot” along a narrow and curving street in New York City’s Chinatown district, probably as we were waiting for others to arrive for dinner at a neighborhood restaurant. Given the way my photographic eye works, I first noticed the pattern from the metal door and brick walls, with lines converging as the sidewalk traveled further down the street. I picked this spot because of some of the things that interrupted that pattern — the spilled paint on the sidewalk, the doors, and the utility pole.

Then I waited and watched. In almost all cases it will be little more than a moment or two before someone interesting wanders into this urban landscape and humanizes it in one way or another. I got lucky here, as this fellows attire fit with the colors of the existing scene, and I was able to photograph him just as he passed and walked across the paint-spill section of the sidewalk, with his face invisible to the camera.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Friday Night, Manhattan

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Friday Night, Manhattan
Friday Night, Manhattan

Friday Night, Manhattan. New York City. August 8, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People out on a Friday night in Manhattan

On this evening I finally got to seriously try out something that I had been thinking of doing for some time — handheld street photography at night. Current digital cameras are providing low-light capabilities now that were almost unimaginable just a few years ago, to the point that it is possible to shoot at very high ISO setting and shoot in urban darkness almost as if it were daytime. (To be sure, there are some issues related to things like dynamic range, the need to use very large apertures, narrow DOF, dealing with noise in post, etc.)

We had just left a club where we heard a musical performance and we decided to head over to Washington Square where yet another performance was going on. Almost as soon as we left the first building it hit me that this was my opportunity to give this a shot, so I worked with a 23mm (35mm equivalent) f/1.4 lens and cranked up the ISO and started shooting. I quickly noticed that I actually had some exposure headroom, and I could lower ISO stop down a bit. I also quickly became fascinated by the nighttime shadows, which are nothing like what we see during the day. I started looking for bright “pools of light” under artificial lighting and then constructing compositions and waiting for an interesting juxtaposition of people and other elements.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Tourists, Brooklyn Bridge Park

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Tourists, Brooklyn Bridge Park
Tourists, Brooklyn Bridge Park

Tourists, Brooklyn Bridge Park. Brooklyn, New York. August 8, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tourists walk along the East River shoreline at the Brooklyn Bridge Park as a sailboat passes

I made this photograph in the DUMBO (“Down Under Manhattan Bridge Underpass”) area of Brooklyn’s waterfront, near where both the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges arrive from across the water in Manhattan. After a lot of time spent wandering Manhattan with camera in hand, we decided to take a slightly lower key day and wander Brooklyn instead. We walked here and there, stopping for lunch in a great little sandwich shop, and then wandered some more, traveling through Park Slope until we ended up at the waterfront Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Without any firm plan, but with a general thought of taking a water taxi uptown and into Manhattan, we walked along this park for a while, soon arriving at the water taxi dock. We bought our tickets and then had some time to sit around on this sunny afternoon and wait and watch passers-by. I kept looking a this small are of the promenade where the railing curved back in towards the ferry dock and from which a great panoramic view of Manhattan was available. There was an ebb and flow of other visitors, and among them there were occasionally some interesting juxtapositions of people, clothing, activities, and more. This brief instant, featuring people in various colorful shirts and a passing sailboat (!) seemed like a worthwhile one to capture.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.