Category Archives: Photographs: Structures and Objects

Sutro Tower and Golden Gate Bridge South Tower, Morning

Sutro Tower and Golden Gate Bridge South Tower, Morning
Sutro Tower and Golden Gate Bridge South Tower, Morning

Sutro Tower and Golden Gate Bridge South Tower, Morning. San Francisco, California. December 18, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning traffic crosses the Golden Gate Bridge approaching the south tower with haze-shrouded San Francisco hills and Sutro Tower beyond.

I’ve played around with photographs of the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge from this iconic location above the north end of the Bridge before, including some night photography, but I’ve never quite been happy with the composition. On this morning I got lucky with the thin fog muting the colors and creating atmospheric recession into the distant hills and the warm morning light on the upper surface of the bridge. In addition I tried a different composition – instead of trying to fit the whole bridge into the frame I centered the photo on the curve of the distant ridge and then selected a focal length that included a bit of water, a bit of the area to the right of the bridge, and a good portion of the span with just enough morning traffic. The distant structure is Sutro Tower, the site of a number of San Francisco radio and television broadcast antennas.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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keywords: california, usa, travel, scenic, san francisco, bay, area, golden, gate, national, recreation, area, park, stock, sutro, south, tower, cable, suspension, bridge, traffic, cars, morning, haze, fog, distance, hills, trees, water, waves, highway, 101, 1, clouds, atmosphere, recession, silhouette, urban, landscape, commute, span, shore, fort, mason, stock

Converging Lines and Clouds

Converging Lines and Clouds

Converging Lines and Clouds. San Francisco, California. September 16, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of converging lines of downtown San Francisco buildings with cloudy sky.

On this “urban landscape” I went with a wide focal length and decided to just let those perspective lines go right ahead and converge! The photograph was made on a morning walk up the lower part of Market Street as the fog began to clear back from the bay.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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keywords: san francisco, california, usa, travel, tourist, scenic, city, urban, downtown, perspective, converging, lines, angles, structure, texture, shadow, reflection, cloud, sky, fog, line, form, shape, tower, building, skyscraper, window, wall, surface, abstract, stock, monochrome, black and white

Reflection Patterns, San Francisco

Reflection Patterns, San Francisco

Reflection Patterns, San Francisco. San Francisco, California. September 16, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Many layers of reflections on windows of downtown towers in San Francisco, California.

I’m crazy about the “reflections of reflections reflections…” that you can find in urbanized downtown areas when the light is just right. While the shapes and forms of the buildings are, I think, somewhat interesting, what intrigued me about this scene were the almost psychedelic shapes and colors of the warped, bent, and oddly juxtaposed reflections covering almost all of the shiny surfaces of the buildings. (Of course, all of that is a bit hard to see in this small online jpg version.)

This is definitely one of the photographs in my “urban landscape” category. I have to think about the light and the shapes and distance in much the same way I might if I were photographing in a natural canyon or deep valley. However, unlike “real” landscape photography, shots are these are almost always done hand held and shot fairly quickly while wandering around on foot.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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keywords: san francisco, california, usa, travel, tourist, scenic, city, urban, downtown, architecture, building, tower, skyscraper, structure, form, shadow, column, sky, cloud, angle, wires, windows, walls, stock

Tall Buildings, Morning Light

Tall Buildings, Morning Light

Tall Buildings, Morning Light. San Francisco, California. September 16, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tall downtown buildings along Market Street in the morning light as fog clears, San Francisco, California.

It is a bit unusual to get a clear view of one of the tall buildings in downtown San Francisco, where the streets tend to be fairly narrow and the buildings are either so close that they tower overhead or they are so crowded that you only see them as groups. This photograph however allowed by to separate this building from the surrounding downtown architecture. It was made from near the “foot of Market Street” along the Bay as I began to walk from the Embarcadero into the more central downtown area. As I did the fog that had been covering the bay and the City began to break up – and you see both a few remaining wisps of fog and the shadows from the fog on the sides of some of the buildings.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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