Category Archives: Photographs: San Francisco

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

Souvenir Shop, Night

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Souvenir Shop, Night
People in front of a colorful Chinatown souvenir shop at night, San Francisco

Souvenir Shop, Night. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People in front of a colorful Chinatown souvenir shop at night, San Francisco.

A few years ago I began to photograph in San Francisco’s Chinatown district. At first the visits were simply connected to my street photography visits to The City, as this area happens to be on my route between several other areas I also photograph. As a Bay Area person I have visiting this spot for decades and, frankly, mostly regarded it as a tourist area. (In fact, portions of the “main drag” though the area do have largely that quality.) But eventually several things began to change my sense of the area. The first was deciding to not just walk the main tourist route, but to go a few blocks to either side. Second was to go there at the non-tourist times, for example in the early morning, when a walk along Stockton Street is a very different experience. Third was to photograph at night.

The first time I did the latter in this area was a few years back when some night photography friends suggested that we meet up for dinner there and then spend the evening photographing. I was entranced by the effect of the colorful lighting spilling onto the narrow streets and sidewalks, something that makes night photography a more viable option than on typical wide American urban streets. At about the same time I was introduced to Manhattan’s Chinatown district — a place that is both different from and similar to this San Francisco area — and I began to photograph both of them.

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: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Looking Down

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Looking Down
Street patterns observed while using a crosswalk.

Looking Down. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Street patterns observed while using a crosswalk.

The sight of me making this photograph might have raised a few eyebrows, made a few observers wonder… though, in truth, I tried to make it in a sneaky fashion. The basic idea was that the conjunction of colors, textures, and shapes caught my eye as I was entering a crosswalk in downtown San Francisco at a rather crowded time of day… so I pointed my camera straight down and made an exposure.

I’m naturally attracted to patterns and shapes and juxtapositions, so I see things like this everywhere, at least when I have my visual senses engaged. To be sure, more of my street photographs include people, but these urban colors and patterns have a place in it as well.

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

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

Outside The Vesuvio Cafe

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Outside The Vesuvio Cafe, San Francisco
“Outside The Vesuvio Cafe” — A lone man stands outside the entrance to a cafe in a graffiti-covered San Francisco alley at night

The end of Daylight Savings Time — which I look forward to every year! — opens up additional night opportunities for me, especially with it comes to night street photography. I live close enough to San Francisco that I can get there and back by rail, which is often a better option than driving, provided that I can return before it gets too late. Now that the sun is setting at close to 5:00 PM I have time to photograph twilight and early darkness — typically the best time for this sort of photography — and still catch a reasonably early train.

This week I took advantage of this change for the first time this fall, arriving inThe City to in the early afternoon, photographing for a few hours in (fog-muted) daylight, and then sticking around as day changed to night. Photographing in such a location is almost visually overwhelming. There are details everywhere — people, shops, passing traffic, buildings, and more — and it can be hard to make visual sense out of them. Everything is in a constant state of motion, so there is often little time to carefully consider a photograph. Instead, I operate by instinct, working quickly and knowing that only a small percentage of exposures will be worthwhile. As I walked up toward the North Beach area I looked up an alley and spotted this fellow standing alone in this graffiti-covered alley as the artificial lighting began to supplant the natural light.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

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

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Wolfe

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Wolfe
An old eating establishment in a rapidly gentrifying area of San Francisco

Wolfe. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An old eating establishment in a rapidly gentrifying area of San Francisco.

Today you get a San Francisco photograph — since that’s where I’ve been hanging out for most of the past week or so. I am a member of Studio Nocturne, a group of photographers who do night photography. The group has a history going back several decades, and I’ve been working with them for the past decade or so. My night photography has evolved over that time — back in about 2003 when I first explored the genre I was photographing what I think of as “industrial landscapes” of abandoned industrial sites. More recently I found that small digital cameras allow me to photograph with a handheld camera in urban settings, and I’ve been adding night street photography to the mix.

To get back to this building… our open studio was in the Potrero district, at the edge of an area that has long housed things like warehouses, industrial concerns, and so forth. Like pretty much all of San Francisco, this area is rapidly losing its former character as it is taken over by condominiums and newer business that serve the new residences. This place, whose signs describe it as a place to get sandwiches, undoubtedly once served the working folks in the area, and time will tell whether or not it manages to find a clientele among the new residents. Meanwhile, when I’m in “The City” I make a point of photographing these places, many of which may no longer be there in a few years.

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.

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