Category Archives: Photographs: Structures and Objects

Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Driveway, Arrows, Yellow Line

June 19, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

White arrows and a yellow line painted on a parking lot driveway, Seattle, Washington.

Another in the series of photographs of urban forms, shot in Seattle in early May. The story, and this isn’t the first time that I’ve mentioned it, is that I had a free hour during a visit to Seattle. I found out that there was a “Seattle Photo Walk” going on in the Fremont District, which I think I may have passed through before but where I had never photographed – so I met up with the group and spent an hour wandering around in the Fremont area.

I made quite a few photographs during that short time, and near the end of my hour I crossed back into Fremont by walking across a bridge, and this bridge turned out to figure in several photographs, either as a subject or as a vantage point. In this photograph it is merely the vantage point, as I shot into this driveway leading to an underground parking area while walking across the bridge. The opposing arrows were an obvious interest, but I also was intrigued by the single yellow line cutting through the scene and the overall concrete grayness of this spot.

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: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: People, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Bicycle Rider, Brick Wall

June 18, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A bicycle rider in orange rides past a brick wall, Seattle, Washington.

This is going to be the first in a small series of photographs from Seattle, Washington that focus on what might be described as urban geometry – odd or interesting juxtapositions of shapes and colors and so forth. I made this photograph back in early May when I joined a group of Seattle photographers for a “Seattle Photo Walk” in the Fremont District. I had only an hour to shoot, but I managed to work intensely for that hour and come back with some stuff that is interesting to me in one way or another.

One thing that I enjoy about photographing the urban environment is that potential subjects come and go almost constantly and often last only for a brief instant. I have to react so fast that I certainly cannot see everything in the frame in a conscious way while making the photograph, though there is something to be said for perhaps have an intuitive understanding of what is there. When I made this photograph I was walking along a bridge the heads back into Seattle’s Fremont district. I had been looking at these brick buildings which feign being old – they are actually new but with old-looking brick walls. The geometry of the buildings attracted me, but I hadn’t really seen a photograph in them at this point. Then, as I looked, I saw the cyclist coming along wearing this very bright orange shirt and helmet and wearing an orange pack. I quickly framed up a composition that included the building, the walkway, and a portion of the road and then waited for the rider to enter the frame. As he passed through I quickly squeezed off three frames. In two of them, a car obscures the cyclist, but in the final one, taken just before he exited the frame, he is all alone against the patterns of the road and the building. (I didn’t notice until later the windows reflected in the middle row of windows on the building.)

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

Door Number Fifty-Five

June 17, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Door #55, rusted frame, and weathered concrete wall, San Francisco.

This will be the first in a series of three “door photographs” I made in one small waterfront alley along San Francisco’s Embarcadero one morning in April. This alley lies behind a steel gate that has often been closed when I have passed by before. I’ve been intrigued by the spot, but unable to do more than try to look through the closely spaced mesh of the gate, but on this morning the gate was wide open and people seemed to be coming from and going to some businesses or offices beyond, so I just walked in and made some photographs of the appealingly decayed parts of the old buildings on this pier.

Several of the doorways, featuring large roll-up doors, were marked by numbers simply stenciled directly on the rough concrete walls. All of the exterior surfaces showed signs of neglect and the whole scene had a utilitarian quality about it – not a thing appeared to have been done to intentionally improve the look of the place. The concrete was marked with seemingly-random splotches of paint, the large check mark you see here and more. The rusted frame of the doorway looked someone might have run into it with a truck or some other large thing at some point, leaving it bent awkwardly inward.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Pipe and Wall, Fremont District

June 16, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A drainage pipe attached to an urban wall, Fremont District, Seattle, Washington.

This minimalist photograph shows something barely worthy of a photograph, by most standards – a plastic drainage pipe attached to a worn stucco wall up a small alley in the Fremont District of Seattle, Washington. There are, perhaps, a few visual puzzles to consider though. The perspective is oddly skewed for several reasons. First, my camera was angled upwards fairly steeply to shoot this wall as it was above the alley I was standing in, and the alley was heading down a slope. In addition, some of the visual cues about up, down, and sideways are a bit contradictory. First, the longer section of the pipe obviously cuts across the scene diagonally. But a close look at the upper section of the pipe shows that it is not quite vertical, with true vertical shown by the drip/seepage lines on the wall.

In any case, enough musing about the photograph. It is a drain pipe and a wall, and I don’t suppose that leaves room for a whole of additional description!

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Structures and Objects

Driveway, Arrows, Yellow Line

Bicycle Rider, Brick Wall

Door Number Fifty-Five

Pipe and Wall, Fremont District

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