Category Archives: Photographs: Night

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

Noodle Shop

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Noodle Shop
A single nighttime diner in a Manhattan noodle shop on a dark street

Noodle Shop. New York City. July 6, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A single nighttime diner in a Manhattan noodle shop on a dark street

I suppose it is because I plan to be there again soon, but I’ve been going back through some earlier photographs from New York City this week, and especially focusing on photographs I made at night there last July. While staying in a busy part of the city (yeah, I know, all the parts are busy…) where there are lots of small business and lots of people I managed to get out frequently and wander with my camera. Most of the neighborhood tended to be quite crowded and busy, with lots of light. However, a few of the side streets included quieter spots where there were no crowds, especially late at night, including this street where there was only one person still eating in this noodle shop.

With photographs like this, especially when rendered in black and white, there is a lot of creative latitude when it comes to deciding how to interpret the scene. I’m generally not a big fan — with some exceptions — of allowing highlights to completely blow out, so the brightly lit areas set a sort of limit on how light I can go. I want to see at least some detail in almost all areas of the photograph, even in the deep shadows, so I often have to do some careful work during the post processing stages to get what I want from these dark area. It is tricky — too dark and all detail is lost, but too light and the shadows end up gray and the mystery is gone. In this photograph I wanted most of the image to feel very dark, with only the three brightly lit areas standing out.

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

Gelato Stand, Evening

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Gelato Stand, Evening
People stop at a Little Italy gelato stand on a summer evening, Manhattan

Gelato Stand, Evening. New York City. July 6, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People stop at a Little Italy gelato stand on a summer evening, Manhattan

Near the end of the year it is my custom to start going back to my raw file archives from the previous year, looking for photographs that I might have overlooked initially. Sometimes I missed them because I was working on other things that caught my attention at the time. In other cases there were simply a lot of photographs, and I moved on to other work before finishing with an earlier set of photographs. I’m starting that project now, so you are likely to see some older work mixed in with more recent photographs over the next few weeks.

We spent a week in New York City in July. (Yes, I know that smart people don’t go to New York during the hot and humid summer months. But I do. Draw your own conclusions… ;-) This time we stayed in the general area of Little Italy. That area is a bit of a tourist place, but it is also an interesting place to wander at night. There are lots of light, lots of shops, and lots of people out and about. On this evening I headed out from the hotel just after dark and did a quick loop through the neighborhood with my camera. Here a group of people lines up at a small gelato stand, while someone shops next door and nearby people sit on benches along the sidewalk.

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: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Caffe Roma

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Caffe Roma
A street scene next to Caffe Roma, Little Italy, Manhattan

Caffe Roma. Little Italy, Manhattan. July 6, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A street scene next to Caffe Roma, Little Italy, Manhattan

On the final evening of our recent week in New York City we headed back to the hotel. It is typical near the end of a such a trip to have a sense of things winding down. But I found time to make one more circuit of the surrounding streets of Little Italy and the edge of Chinatown to do a bit of night street photography.

I moved fairly quickly, and often made quick photographs while on the move, especially when people were the subject and they were not standing still. However, in a few places the buildings and the overall environment caught my attention and I paused for a moment to frame an urban landscape and then to wait for passers-by to populate it. This wall was quite a sight, with its huge and brightly lit painted sign, the red color of the wall itself, the light spilling onto the sidewalk, and the large painting of the woman at the far right. At this moment three groups of people coalesced: the trio interacting at the right, the two in the center who are lit by one of their smartphones, and the two unrelated figures at the far left near the bicycles.

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: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Gelato King

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Gelato King
Late-night passers-by at the Gelato King stand, corner of Mulberry and Grand, NYC

Gelato King. New York City. July 6, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Late-night passers-by at the Gelato King stand, corner of Mulberry and Grand, NYC

Another gelato stand! It seems that this is becoming a theme here. Of course, given that we were staying in a hotel located essentially on the border between Manhattan’s Chinatown and Little Italy districts, these kinds of places were everywhere: Italian deli on the corner, Italian pastry across the street, gelato and cannoli never more than a few footsteps away. (The fact that we were staying in this particular area was more a function of a good price on a hotel than of a desire to be in the middle to the tourist attractions of Little Italy.)

This photograph, if nothing else, illustrates a few things that I look for when photographing urban areas at night, at least when working with subjects like this one. It has a central focus point, and one that seems to provide most of the interesting light in the scene — namely the little gelato stand, with its light (and that of the cannoli stand just around the corner) spilling out onto the sidewalk and providing much of the illumination in the scene. (Additional ambient illumination from other businesses provides a bit of light on the figures.) I made a series of photographs here in rapid succession as people walked through the scene. In some there is no one but the fellow in the stand, in others a group is queued up to buy gelato. In this one the people are almost uniformly spread across the scene, with various orientations to the central light. On both sides women in lighter colors walk toward it; red and yellow tones show up in the attire of several of the subjects.

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.