Category Archives: Photographs: Night

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

Bow Hon Seafood Restaurant

Leave a comment
Bow Hon Seafood Restaurant
A group of people waits for a table at the Bow Hon Seafood Restaurant.

Bow Hon Seafood Restaurant. San Francisco, California. July 25, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A group of people waits for a table at the Bow Hon Seafood Restaurant.

This photograph comes from an evening of night photography in San Francisco, mostly in and around the Chinatown district. This is, of course, a popular tourist area, but somehow the night changes things and makes it perhaps a bit less tacky — or maybe just tacky in more interesting ways! Many of the shops seem to close down early here, even though this was a weekend evening in the height of the San Francisco summer tourist season.

This is almost one of those “photographs of nothing special,” though I think that many of us can identify with the feeling of standing outside small restaurant in an urban area, talking and perhaps waiting for a table as the street life passes by. When shooting handheld photography at night I seek out this little pools of light beneath commercial signs or in the light spilling our from well-lit businesses.

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+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

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

Tourist Shop, Night

Leave a comment
Tourist Shop, Night
Front of a Chinatown tourist shop at night, San Francisco

Tourist Shop, Night. San Francisco, California. July 25, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Front of a Chinatown tourist shop at night, San Francisco

Like any big city popular with tourists, San Francisco has its share — and then some! — of these little shops whose sole purpose seems to be to sell cheap proof that “I was there!” to folks visiting the city. This one happens to be in the densely packed Chinatown district of the City, right on Grant, but you can find the same thing alone the areas of the waterfront that are on the tourist circuit and in a number of other places.

The items included in the stock of such shops, while often sharing the same level of kitsch and cheap manufacture, are often a sort of study in the ways that cities portray themselves and in the ways they are viewed. Exhibit #1: How about those American flag tights! Wow! It was getting late when we passed through here, and many shops had already closed or were in the process of closing.

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+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

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

Urban Reflections

Leave a comment
Urban Reflections
Reflected image of lights in San Francisco’s Chinatown

Urban Reflections. San Francisco, California. July 25, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Reflected image of lights in San Francisco’s Chinatown

This photograph comes from a late-July evening spent doing night street photography in San Francisco, this time working the area between North Beach and Union Square… which of course means largely the Chinatown district. We began photography at dusk a few streets up from the touristy main drag, walking along Stockton street as the last shops closed up for the day. From here we wandered down narrow streets to the main drag, Grant, arriving there as darkness came on.

Even though it was a Friday night during the height of tourist season, there were not all that many people here, at least by the sometimes extraordinarily crowded standards of this area. Some shops were still open — catering to the out-of-town visitors — but many had closed or were closing. Nonetheless, the street held a wild variety of bright lights. At several points I forced myself to take a break from the “normal” street photography stuff and try to look at things in different ways. Here I had decided to look at light reflected in other objects, in this case a parked car.

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+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

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

Store Window Display

Leave a comment
Store Window Display
Motion blurred photograph of a Chinatown store window display

Store Window Display. San Francisco, California. July 25, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Motion blurred photograph of a Chinatown store window display

Part of what I enjoy about night photography is the way that the environment is transformed and how I often have to resort to “seeing as the camera sees” more than seeing as I see in the dim light. The camera sees better in low light, it can pick up colors that fade almost to monochrome in nighttime human vision, and it can “see” things like blur motion with longer exposures.

For a few minutes on this evening I decided to play around with long exposure blur. Instead of keeping the ISO high so that I could use short shutter speeds in the low light and stop motion, I lowered the ISO and intentionally selected smaller apertures and very long shutter speeds. Then I used the combination of subject motion and intentionally moving the camera myself to create abstractions. It may hardly matter, but the subject here was a store window full of colorful lanterns.

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+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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