Category Archives: Photographs: Urban/Street

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

Gated Pier

June 27, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A metal gate blocks the entrance to a pier along San Francisco Bay

This is another in the recent series of photographs made along the San Francisco waterfront, walking along various less-visited areas and occasionally poking my head into places that are more industrial than tourism oriented. I’d have to review more closely to remember for certain, but I believe this one was in the China Basin waterfront area.

As I walked slowly along this section of the waterfront I paused frequently to photograph buildings and other features of the area. This is an area in transition, and taken as a whole this part of the waterfront ranges from old and dilapidated, through working piers, and right on up to remodeled and updated areas reoriented towards business or tourism. By comparison to some of the older working piers, this one seems awfully neat and clean, with the exception of some fabric pushed up against the wall at the far left. The stark lines and stark morning light, open to the vast sky above the bay caught my attention.

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

Poles and Shaded Wall

June 20, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A curving arrangement of metal poles leads to the shaded front of an industrial building at a Port of San Francisco pier

I’m always fascinated by the juxtapositions of things – sometimes the ways that the forms of the natural world come together, but also the little surprises in the human world where things that might not have been thought of as being connected turn out to be. I also love seeing and understand how the camera sees differently that we do with our eyes.

This is just a section of warehouse loading docks along a commercial pier on the San Francisco waterfront. While walking along the shoreline I happened to see a road and pathway leading out onto the pier so I ambled that direction. The way was lined on both sides by the long buildings. On one side they were slightly in sunlight, and the angle of the light created an interested relief on the windows and doors and other textures. In this direction the walls were still in shadow, and the objectively somewhat white walls were subjective very blue—or perhaps I have that backwards!. Until you have seen what the camera sees in this kind of light you don’t realize just how blue the shadows are, but here I decided to “embrace the blue” and let that colored shadow light be what it is. The curving arrangement of metal posts struck me as surprising. In a location where most things are arranged in very linear patterns, this curve seemed to stand out, and I enjoyed the pattern of their shadows on the asphalt.

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

Escalator and Stairs

June 17, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Escalator and stairs at a San Francisco BART station

These BART entrance stations are well-known to San Francisco Bay Area residents. (As are the many stories about them: the wisdom—or not—of outdoor escalators, the necessity of, uh, cleaning them frequently, and more.) They tend to feature a combination of escalators for those going up and stairs for those descending.

I think that they sometimes create a visual center of interest in the cluttered environment of the downtown city. They are ringed by a low metal fence, and this one at least is designed in an attractive curve. (Some other photographs of mine work with that subject.) Looking down from the railings of this fence and tightening the crop enough, I could create a composition of shapes and colors that excluded just about everything but the large vertical shapes broken up by the smaller horizontal shapes, and the contrasting blue and yellow tones. A person begins to enter the frame at the lower right.

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: People, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Man at Crosswalk

June 16, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A man at a crosswalk extends his arms as a bus passes

On Friday the 13th I spent part of my morning walking around and photographing in San Francisco, starting very early at about 7:00 AM, and making a large loop that eventually took me back to the Caltrain station and out of the city before noon. This photograph was a quick shot at a corner along Market Street.

I do this kind of shooting for may reasons, among them being simply that I’m interested in more than just “nature” photography and I am fascinated by the urban landscape, too. (There’s also a deeper philosophical question about just where boundaries between “natural” and “not natural” actually do and do not lie.) When it comes to the process of how I photograph, this work also provides a sometimes-welcome contrast. Most of the work shared here is created by going out with some amount of equipment that typically includes lenses, camera, tripod, and more and then finding more or less static locations from which to shoot. On the other hand, photography like that which I did on this day is more dynamic and fluid. I work with a small handheld camera, carrying only a rather small messenger bag with two more small lenses, and keeping the camera out and ready to shoot in an instant. Sometimes I may work a subject more slowly, but I also sometimes simply raise the camera quickly and almost without conscious thought and make an exposure. In fact, in some situations like this one, that is the only option. There was almost no time to think at all in this case. Without warning I found myself standing behind this fellow who spontaneously put his arms out, in a gesture that is open to many interpretations. The camera was in my hand, I quickly raised it and shot without looking through the viewfinder, making perhaps three quick exposures, one of which included the blurred shape of the bus beyond him, without which this would have been a very different photograph.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Urban/Street

Gated Pier

Poles and Shaded Wall

Escalator and Stairs

Man at Crosswalk

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