Category Archives: Photographs: People

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: People, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Twenty Minutes of Street Photography – Six Photographs

October 29, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 9 Comments

I was in San Francisco this morning for a demo/announcement of new Google Plus features and after the event I had a bit of extra time on my walk back to the Caltrain station – 20 minutes to be precise. So, just for fun, the results (most of them at least) of 20 minutes of street shooting in The City.

It might seem odd to some that a photographer who does so much landscape work would be interested in photographing the sometimes-gritty urban environment of San Francisco. There is a lot I could write about this, but I’ll limit myself to a few ideas here. First, to some extent I think of photographing the urban environment as an extension of landscape photograph – let’s call it “urban landscape.” Second, shooting handheld while on the move leads to a different way of seeing that is quicker and more “improvisational” (to use a term from my music background), and this is, if nothing else, a great exercise in seeing.

Woman with Phone, Tall Building. San Francisco, California. October 29, 2013, 11:01AM.

I had stopped to try to photograph a woman pushing a stroller with this wall as a backdrop. She walked out of the frame too quickly, but I managed to grab this one of the solitary woman against the same backdrop.

MUNI Bus Yard. San Francisco, California. October 29, 2013. 11:03AM.

A moment later and on the other side of the street, I walked past this MUNI yard full of buses ready to head out.

Woman and Dog, Brown Building. San Francisco, California. October 29, 2013. 11:04AM.

One minute later and back on the other side of the street once again, I saw this interesting structure and a woman with a dog fortuitously walked in front at just that moment. This photograph is about many things, but the colors are quite important.

Pedestrian, Sidewalk. San Francisco, California. October 29, 2013. 11:16AM.

Slacking now, it was 12 minutes between the previous photograph and this one… ;-) Here I was trying to figure out my best route and I think I wandered around a bit without shooting, but then I saw this low building which was covered with swatches of paint that had been applied to cover graffiti. Once again, I was lucky and a pedestrian walked into the frame just as I was ready to shoot it.

Autumn Leaf, Sidewalk. San Francisco, California. October 29, 2013. 11:19AM.

After making a wrong turn I ended up walking around a block and back up towards where I started. While walking I saw this leaf and photographed it quickly without looking through the viewfinder.

Garage and Fence. San Francisco, California. October 29, 2013. 11:21AM.

A moment later and on the other side of the street from the leaf, I saw this small lot and the light blue building with the roll-up door, and the bright sky beyond. Initially I wanted to include the more of the building to the left along with a street light near its corner. So I made a few exposures of that, pausing as traffic passed by, and then made this one that eliminated all of the left-side building except for the tall wall facing the lot.

At this point I realized I had a train to catch, and one stop to make on the way there…

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: Music & Musicians, Photographs: People

Low Strings, Rehearsal

October 6, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 5 Comments

Members of the cello and double bass sections of Symphony Silicon Valley at a September 27, 2013 rehearsal

And now, as they say, something entirely different. I am midway into a three-year project that has me photographing classical musicians in San Jose, California – primarily the Symphony Silicon Valley and the San Jose Chamber Orchestra. Symphony Silicon Valley is the direct descendant of the San Jose Symphony, a group that has been described as the longest running symphony orchestra in the western United States. The San Jose Chamber Orchestra is a smaller group that has a reputation for exciting and high quality performances and for promoting new works by living composers.

Since many of my usual photographic subjects are inanimate objects – as we like to say, “Rocks. Trees. Water.” – photographing performing artists is, in many ways, a very big change for me. This work is all about the people and, in fact, the point of the project is to tell the stories of these artists in a more complete way, showing and telling aspects of what they do that are not usually seen by the public and concert-goers. It was a bit of a stretch for me at first, walking around among performing artists and finding ways to see what they do photographically and record what they do and show who they are. However, I may have an advantage or two over some who might try to photograph such subjects. I have a lot of background in music, having taught it at the college level for many years, having been a performer myself at one time, and being married to a fine musician. There is as much music as photography in my life, and for this reason I believe that I am sensitive to aspects of the musical life that might not be apparent to other photographers who don’t have this background. Related to this, I have personal friendships among many in this world, which gives me a bit of an entre that has helped a lot.

I’ll likely share more of this work from time to time – from among the 2000 or more photographs that I have made so far. This photograph was made at a rehearsal of Symphony Silicon Vally in late September, 2013. Here the orchestra is preparing their performance of Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kije Suite. (Folks who know the music might even be able to figure out where they are in the work – there is a hint in the photo.) For this shot I photographed from the balcony with a long lens in order to compress the perspective of this part of the stage occupied by some of the orchestra’s low string players.

Photographs: England, Photographs: People, Photographs: Urban/Street

London Street Market

August 17, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A London street market near closing time.

This is another photograph made in the narrow streets along the south side of the Thames river roughly in the area of the Millennium and Southwark Bridges, where we found ourselves with some time to kill late one afternoon. As we walked around with no firm plan in mind we came to a location where a street market was just closing, and the many vendors were making their final sales of the day and starting to close up shop.

Visually this was an absolutely compelling place to photograph, though I’m not at all sure I was able to do it justice – and I would go back given the chance. The many stalls selling almost anything you can imagine created their own interest; the place was packed with people shopping or just walking through on their way to some other place. And being under a bridge and in places in old buildings with lots of glass above, the light was truly wonderful. I spent perhaps a half hour walking through the area, shooting like crazy, and I especially liked the spots like this one where I could position myself in shadow and shoot directly toward the late afternoon light.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: People, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Looking In

August 5, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Almost everyone in a group of people looks into a conservatory courtyard while waiting for it to open.

Apologies for this title, but I did not get the name of the building (perhaps today I’ll do that), “A group of people looking into a courtyard with one guy looking the other way” seemed a bit too long, and I ran out of creativity before posting. I suppose there is the potential here for incorporating some quip about San Francisco “summer” weather as well – on this lovely “summer” afternoon there were high clouds and fog and it was trying to rain! :-)

I had another afternoon to kill wandering around San Francisco yesterday afternoon. My general target was something like street photography, though it also incorporated this little project I have to photograph downtown buildings from odd angles and render the images in black and white. I had been working on the latter and was heading back to where I would have dinner (and running a few minutes late) when I saw this little cluster of people crowded around what looked like the entrance to this glassed in courtyard filled with palm trees and some tables. Any sort of odd little scene like this – quite different from the general rush of people in the downtown area – catches my eye and often seems like it might make a photograph. Here I had the group of people crowded together to work with, along with the classical architecture of the building and courtyard. So I did what I often might do with such a scene: I stopped and quickly made one initial photograph so as not to miss it entirely, and then I remained and watched for something interesting or out-of-place to occur. When the fellow at the right separated himself from the larger group, my first reaction was a bit of frustration that he had broken up the group of people facing away, but in the end he makes the photograph more interesting to me than it would have been otherwise.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: People

Twenty Minutes of Street Photography – Six Photographs

Low Strings, Rehearsal

London Street Market

Looking In

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.