Category Archives: Photographs: Urban/Street

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

Fallen Leaves

September 15, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Fallen leaves on a grate along a Seattle downtown sidewalk

August 14 was a day off during the Seattle Opera “Ring” cycle – a series of four Wagner operas performed over a six-day period. For those who may not know, attending a full production of the Ring is almost a full-time occupation for the better part of a week. This may sound unbelievable to those who cannot imagine such a thing, but the four operas range from as short as about 2 1/2 hours up to well beyond five hours for the last one, Götterdämmerung – and once you start to “get it” and buy into the whole story, the music, and everything that goes with a production of this thing, well you’ll understand. In any case, on this first of two free days we had during the performances we decided to keep it simple and just head to downtown Seattle to walk around and see what we could photograph.

We took a fairly free-form approach to the shoot, starting near Pike Place Market where we knew we could get some coffee and then photographing people and stuff in and around the Market. We finished there and headed south through downtown, with no particular goal in mind. Eventually we got as far as the Art Wolfe Gallery, where we looked around a bit before heading north again. These street shoots are a lot of fun. I often shoot quickly, using a small camera and almost always just a prime, and I forego the usual tripod and gobs of heavy equipment. Subjects can range from people to buildings to little bits and pieces of urban detritus, and they frequently appear and are gone quickly. Something about this conjunction of lines and textures caught my attention, along with the faintly mossy green tint and the bit of accidental nature in the form of the leaves that had fallen on the metal grate.

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

Railings, Rack, Sidewalk Shadows

September 8, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An accidental geometric abstraction of shapes formed by metal tubes of racks and railings and their shadows, San Francisco

On a late-Spring visit to San Francisco on the weekend when SFMOMA was last open before its two-year closing for remodeling and expansion, I arrived on the Caltrain from the South Bay very early in the morning and had time to wander the streets a bit before going to the museum. At one point I walked past a place close to the museum, a spot I have walked by many times before, and spotted this junction of lines, curves, shadows, and light and dark space.

Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Urban/Street

Trance Entrance

September 1, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A sign with multiple potential meanings, Pike Place Market

There are so many possible bad puns that could be made about the sign in this photograph, especially considering the city in which it was made and other things that were going on in town at that time. I’ll refrain.

On a free day during a recent trip to Seattle we decided to wander around downtown Seattle and do mostly street photography. We started out near Pike Place Market, where there are abundant opportunities to find not only the coffee and food we were seeking, but also lots of interesting “Seattlish” photographic opportunities. As we walked past an entrancing entrance to the Market, I looked up to see some wildly colorful flowers (not that you can tell here!) growing along the edge of the roof and partially hanging over the sign.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Germany, Photographs: Urban/Street

Antiquariat

August 31, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Doorway of a bookstore in Heidelberg, Germany

Once we got off the “main drag” (aka, the “hauptstrasse”) in Heidelberg, the streets became even narrower, the crowds diminished, the number of (mostly) young people riding bicycles increased, and there were more small shops that seemed quite unique. I think that this shop sells used or old books from the looks of it, but I’m afraid that I did not go inside to check – I don’t speak more than a few words of German, so a German bookstore was going to be more than a bit of a challenge!

Visually the store was still interesting, though. I’m fascinated by the interesting colors of paint on the walls and by the rather distressed quality of that paint on these old buildings, along with the odd and perhaps misaligned angles – you can see them clearly here if you take a close look at the door and its frame. There were a few small items sitting outside on the steps, but they hardly constituted a display that was guaranteed to grab the attention of passers-by. Inside you can see the inviting ambience of almost any old bookstore, with the warm glow of a lamp sitting on a desk or table.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Urban/Street

Fallen Leaves

Railings, Rack, Sidewalk Shadows

Trance Entrance

Antiquariat

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