Manhattan Food Cart, Night. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People walking past or stopping at a Lower Manhattan food cart on a winter evening.

This photograph ties together several things that interest and fascinate me about photographing in the urban environment, particularly at night. One feature is how the night can transform subjects that would look quite different in the daytime — and now that modern cameras are good enough in very low light to permit us to do street photography at night we can more readily work with these transformed subjects. At night the light of cities, which some sometimes be almost as fascinating as state lighting, highlight particular aspects of the scene and can create a kind of mystery that isn’t there in the day time. After all, how much attention might you pay to a couple of people being a quick meal from a food cart during the day?

The initial subject here was the two individuals standing at the cart and placing an order with the fellow who works there. They are the center of the image for compositional reasons, for narrative reasons, and because they are in the light! But that reflective sidewalk is interesting to me, too, and having it broken up by passing figures makes it more so — and the two dark figures frame the central focus.

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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.

La Churreria, Dusk. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

La Churreria cafe at dusk, Nolita, Manhattan.

On this afternoon we met up with our oldest son, who works in Manhattan and lives a subway commute away, and we took a long, wandering walk south from Grand Central Station to near the southern tip of Lower Manhattan. Along the way we steered clear of the more major streets and often ended up on what pass for side streets. (Though most north-south streets in Manhattan or fairly well-traveled.) As we walked on this winter afternoon the light gradually shifted over toward evening, and by the time I made this photograph it was twilight.

Logically, the scene is perhaps nothing special and probably not all that different from a thousand other similar scenes throughout Manhattan — a somewhat grimy (at least to those of us from other places) street lined with lots of interesting little shops, where evening lights were coming on and casting an inviting glow onto the sidewalk. I regret not stopping here to grab a churro after reading about the place a bit after we returned home — it turns out that they had a take-out window, so we could have paused on our walk.

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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 | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Iconic Magazines. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Mulberry Iconic Magazines at Kenmare and Mulberry Streets, Manhattan.

When I travel I often try to figure out what factors give a place its “quality,” that sometimes vague sense of the place that sets it apart from other locations. Sometimes, of course, certain aspects are pretty obvious — only one city has an Empire State Building, there’s only one Eiffel Tower, no other bridge is quite like the Golden Gate Bridge, not every city is filled with canals, and so on. One factor that I notice in quite a few large cities, but in a particular way in Manhattan, is the difference between the objective grittiness and even ugliness of many exteriors versus the often warm and inviting quality of personal interiors — people’s homes, many eating places, certain stores, and more.

Those worlds aren’t complete disconnected though, and especially in winter I feel that spots where light spills out from those interiors into the public space can connect them. This one happens to be on a street corner that might not otherwise seem particularly special, but it contrasts greatly with the rather grim exertion of the upper floors and with the street in front. (For the record, I do realize that my description above is not quite air-tight…)

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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 | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Smoke Shop. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Night photograph of a man approaching the Millennium Smoke Shop in Lower Manhattan.

Something a bit unusual happened regarding this photograph. I originally post “it” a couple of week ago, but it a version that used a different aspect ratio, in “portrait” mode. In my initial way of seeing the photograph, that is what I had in mind, partly because I wanted the figure to look very small by comparison to other features and partly because there was something in the upper part of the frame that I thought I wanted to include. But literally within minutes of sharing the image I reconsidered and began to feel that a square crop would be more effective. It allows the figure to be a bit larger, removes a unnecessary distraction that dominated the removed upper frame, and generally seems to produce a more effective composition.

These things happen! And because one of my reasons for sharing daily photographs is to reveal the ongoing “practice” of making my photographs, I willing to be a bit open about my thinking and its evolution. First choices are often good choices… except when they aren’t. The particular trap I originally fell into is one that I’m usually on guard against, namely getting so attached to some marginal element of a photograph (in this case it had been a sign in the upper portion of the frame) that I failed to see past it and recognize that the image would be stronger by removing the subject of my focus.

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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 | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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