Category Archives: Photographs: Urban/Street

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Summer Evening, Little Italy

Leave a comment
Summer Evening, Little Italy
People crowd the streets of Little Italy on a warm summer evening in Manhattan

Summer Evening, Little Italy. New York, New York. August 10, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People crowd the streets of Little Italy on a warm summer evening in Manhattan

For some reason, I too often find myself in New York in the middle of August. Not that I dislike New York — actually I love the place, for wandering, for photography, for museums, for food, for many things. It has been almost six months since I was last there and I already feel like I’m overdue for a visit. The issue is with August. As my sons, who live there, have told me, August is perhaps the least comfortable time to visit. it tends to be hot and muggy, and this is why many New Yorkers pick this time to be somewhere else.

But even though I know this I have probably made half of my New York visits during this month. It has become almost a standing joke in our household. On this 2014 August day we had been in Chinatown looking for food, and afterwards we walked up and into Little Italy, where on summer evenings like this one the streets are filled with people, looking for espresso and gelato.

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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

Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Shop Window, Shadows

Leave a comment
Shop Window, Shadows
Afternoon sun casts shadows on display in a shop window

Shop Window, Shadows. Pasadena, California. January 6, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Afternoon sun casts shadows on display in a shop window

We headed to Southern California just after the New Year. It was an excuse to take the Pacific Coast Highway down the California coast — we were fortunate to do this before winter storms forced a long-term closure! — and to visit various family members. Between the scheduled events we wandered a bit and visited whatever nearby thing seemed interesting.

We spent this afternoon wandering downtown Pasadena. It was a fairly lazy day — we had the afternoon pretty much free, with nothing on the calendar but an evening get-together. I made this photograph as the low-angle afternoon winter light slanted across the street and through the windows of this store to produce complex patterns of reflections, text, and the store’s interior.

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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

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

Building, Reflections

Leave a comment
Building, Reflections
Portions of downtown San Francisco reflected in the windows of a tall building

Building, Reflections. San Francisco, California. February 3, 3017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Portions of downtown San Francisco reflected in the windows of a tall building

This is an urban landscape photograph — while the subject is quite different from natural landscapes, I think of it is ways that are at least partially similar. Superficially, the urban world of towers and canyons presents some possibilities that are related to the mountains and valleys that I photograph in the non-urban world; I think about light and form in similar ways; and the ways I view each type of landscape can’t help but inform how I view the other.

It was only a few years ago when I understood something that intrigues me about glass-covered buildings like this one. (Yes, I’m slow sometimes…) We feel like we are looking at a building in a photograph like this, but a good part of what we actually see is not the building at all, but its form made visible by means of reflections of its surroundings, including other buildings and the sky. Here some skeletal forms help define its shape, perhaps more so than with some other buildings, but between those elements the windows themselves mostly reflect things that are not the building itself

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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

Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Urban/Street

Black and White Stripes

Leave a comment
Black and White Stripes
Black and white strips on a bus stop billboard

Black and White Stripes. Pasadena, California. January 6, 2017. Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white strips on a bus stop billboard

For a guy who photographs landscapes, shooting street photography can be liberating and a whole lot of fun. Consider: Rather than carrying a large tripod, a big camera, a bag full of lenses — not that I’m complaining! — I can go out with a camera I can hold in one hand, usually with a single prime lens, and I can simply respond immediately to whatever I see. Subjects can include commercial signs, architecture, people, you name it. On a practical note, photographing this way helps me tune up my “seeing” so that I more quickly can find and figure out how to photograph things.

We were killing time in the late afternoon in Pasadena, California, between a midday event and a rendezvous for dinner in the evening. We walked some, hung out in a little place for a while, then walked more, had coffee, and walked again. This pattern was part of an advertising graphic on a sign at a bus stop, if I recall correctly.

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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