Category Archives: Photographs: Structures and Objects

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

Parking Lot Near Pier 48, Morning

July 15, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Morning light on a large parking lot near Pier 48, San Francisco.

Continuing with the “urban landscape” theme, this is a photograph of a parking lot south of the bridge next to ATT Park and near the buildings of Pier 48 in San Francisco. After getting off the train that arrived in San Francisco at 7:00 a.m. and wandering over to Townsend Street, I decided to cross the what I think must be the Mission Bay inlet and take a look through this area which was rather deserted at this early hour. (Come back here before a Giants game, and the parking lot will be completely full of the cars of people who are willing to spend exorbitant amounts to park here.)

While there were cars in other portions of this parking lot that are closer to likely destinations, at this far end there was a single lonely car, and that seemed like it could be an anchor for a photograph of the lot, the tall streetlight poles, the industrial-looking buildings of Pier 48 and other assorted waterfront things. Because it was so early, the sun rising across the bay was filling the air with brilliant light that created a sky that was more white than blue.

In addition to the obvious crop, this image required other kinds of substantial work in post. The first issue was controlling the very brightest parts of the sky and a second was the follow-up need to then lighten a few other areas to get some detail back into the image. Color balance was a tricky thing – this isn’t that far from what the raw file contained, though I did warm the colors just a bit. I also did something in this image that I rarely do, namely use semi-opaque blurred and desaturated overlay layer of the original image to do, well, some stuff that is a bit hard to describe in written form. Suffice it to say that this had an effect on the parking lot and on the brightness of the sky.

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

Saint Patrick’s Church

July 10, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Black and white photograph of walls, windows, and roof lines of the side of Saint Patrick’s Church, San Francisco.

I don’t know the full history of this church in downtown San Francisco, but I do know that it is visually interesting. It has the appearance of an old cathedral, with the emphasis on old. Parts of the structure appear to be made of reinforced concrete, parts of brick, and a few sections of newer construction. Bits and pieces of all of that appear in this photograph, with some rather old and weathered materials in much of the structure, but with a much more modern-looking outbuilding at lower right.

While there is a large park (Yerba Buena Park) right across the street, much of the other surrounding architecture is quite modern for the most part. Most striking is the deep blue cubic structure of the Contemporary Jewish Museum right next door, but all around much taller and vastly more modern buildings are found. (Some of the light filling the shadows in this photograph is reflected from those buildings.)

I think that this photograph has a lot in common with a number of my photographs of mountains, especially the Sierra Nevada. In fact, I don’t think it is too hard to find parallels to some of the recent photographs of Mount Conness towering above the shorter Polly, Pywiack, and Medlicott Domes near Tenaya Lake along Tioga Pass Road.

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

Freeway Overpass, Townsend Street

July 9, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Freeway overpass crosses the train tracks along Townsend Street near the Caltrain station, San Francisco.

In the middle of a long string of landscape photographs from the Sierra Nevada, today I present a photograph of… what appears to be a trashed and abandoned area beneath a freeway overpass. I’m guess that at least a few people reading this might be perplexed.

While I absolutely love going to and photographing wild and scenic areas – and as a resident of northern California I’m fortunate to live close to some pretty amazing such places – those are not the only photographic subjects that I find interesting. The explanation is complicated and would require me to discuss a whole range of things including from the nature of beauty (e.g. – “beautiful” and “pretty” are not the same thing), the relationship between the concepts of “natural” and “civilized, the belief that part of what a photograph might do is show a thing in a way that the viewer might not otherwise consider, and even the practical effect on all of my photography from photographing more than one thing. Heck, I also just like to visit San Francisco and other urban areas and wander around!

This time of year I make regular trips to San Francisco, usually taking the train into The City fairly early in the morning and then wandering on foot wherever my interest leads me. On this morning I was up before 5:00 a.m., out the door to catch a bus at about 5:25, on the train a bit before 6:00, and walking out of the San Francisco Caltrain station a couple minutes after 7:00 a.m. As the train approached the station I noticed a number of freeway overpasses – the same sort of structures that were used so effectively in San Francisco Opera’s recent production of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, which affected me visually as well as in the other expected ways. So as soon as I got off the train I headed back along Townsend to this little space beneath the 6th Street exit ramp from highway 280 and photographed in the very same “golden hour” light that I would look for if I were in the Sierra.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

People, MoMA

June 27, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

People moving on multiple levels of lobby and walkways at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

I’ve been sitting on this photograph for a while, but I’ll interrupt the recent series of Sierra Nevada photographs to insert something more urban.

The photograph was made handheld inside a central atrium-like area of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, a space from which layers of walkways could be seen. Although the slow shutter speed was somewhat a matter of necessity (but not totally) it also allowed me to let the moving figures blur, which suggests their motion more than would a faster shutter speed. I also removes the specific features of many of the closer people and lets them function more as generic figures in the image. There is more going on in the scene than might be apparent with a cursory glance.

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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.

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