Holiday lights in the gardens of the Filoli Estate.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
One thing often leads to another. Recently I looked up a photograph I made in a few years ago. (I’m writing something about that photograph that will appear on my blog soon.) As I contemplated the circumstance of making that photograph I wanted to go back and look at others I made right before and after that one. Once I started it was impossible to stop, and before long I was digging into a body of work that I had not looked at for a while. As I did, I found some forgotten images that I wanted to work on.
This photograph is one of them. We were staying in Montmartre, and on this evening we went out to find something to eat… and then we ended up just walking along the evening streets, taking in the feeling of the place and, of course, making photographs. As in many big cities, there is fascinating street art throughout Paris — and some not-so-fascinating stuff, too. I photographed this eclectic little vignette under the light of street lamps: “HI FROM PARIS!”
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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Considering that I have recently shared photograph from our December 2021 visit to pandemic-stricken New York City, you might think that this photograph, with its appropriately empty street and sidewalk, might come from that trip. You would be incorrect. This photograph comes from our last visit before the Great Lockdown, back in the late winter of 2019, when we spent a week wandering freely around Manhattan, stopping wherever we wanted to for food and drink, wandering into museums, and mingling in crowds. The quiet scene shown here was, at that time, the exception to the rule.
If I recall correctly, I made the photograph on a relatively long we made from Midtown all the way down to Lower Manhattan, starting in the afternoon and ending around sunset. This photograph comes from that wonderful time of day when it isn’t yet dark — and buildings are still lit by the fading ambient light — but the lights of businesses and offices have started to come on, illuminating interiors and spilling light out onto the sidewalks.
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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
This is another San Francisco night street photography photograph, made possible by the advent of very good, very small digital cameras that can now make good images in very dark conditions. Places like this one, with narrow streets, bright interiors, and a fair amount of ambient light from business signs, become viable subjects for the photographers working with handheld cameras and no electronic flash. In this sort of photography I often work quickly, pausing only long enough to frame up an interesting urban landscape and look for people to populate it.
As a person who frequently photographs on foot in San Francisco and who has lived reasonably close to The City for decades, I know some parts of San Francisco pretty well at this point. I’m frequently in and around Chinatown when I’m up there — because a friend suggests it, because I pass through on my way to another destination, or because it is my destination. For the most part I eschew the busy, commercialized stretch of Grant Street that most think of when they hear “Chinatown” in San Francisco. But at night it becomes more interesting to me, and the larger number and variety of ambient light sources are both interesting and helpful. The bright interior of this shop contrasts with the dark world on the sidewalk, and it is hard for me to say what is actually going on in the shop.
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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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