Category Archives: Photographs: Urban/Street

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

Bridge, Olympic Sculpture Park

September 13, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A bridge crosses railroad tracks at the Olympic Sculpture Park, Washington.

Back in 2008 I travelled to Seattle on mostly family business. I arrived a bit early and ended up spending some time wandering around the Olympic Sculpture Park, a place I enjoy both for the art and for the architecture and other features of this public space.

The bridge across the railroad tracks had interested me previously, but I’ve found it a difficult subject to photograph – somewhat surprisingly, since it seems to me like such an obvious thing to photograph. So in this image I more or less obscured most of the bridge itself, leaving not much more than the white vertical supports along its exterior and its overall shape and mass. I thought that the relationships between the texture of the metal bridge and the concrete underneath was interesting, as were some of the relationships between various shapes and angles. As I have done in a few other recent photographs, I played around with “pure” color and black and white renditions of the image – in the end deciding to sort of split the difference, thinking that a somewhat de-saturated color image might be most in line with my memory of the place and the scene on that winter day.

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

Man on Escalator

September 7, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A man rides an ascending escalator in San Francisco, California.

There is a lot I could write about this photograph, but I think I’ll keep it short and simply describe. I made the photograph in 2007 while on one of my walks around San Francisco – walks that usually start at the CalTrain station and then head off in a variety of directions, almost all of which provide opportunities to photograph the urban “landscape and wildlife.”

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

Reflections, Metal Wall, WTC Site

September 5, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A metal wall near the World Trade Center site reflects the colors of surrounding buildings and passers-by.

During our recent visit to New York City we spent some time at the World Trade Center site. This is the third time we have been there. The first was right around New Years 2000, when we did the typical tourist thing and went to the top of the WTC at night and looked over the city. It was an innocent time, wasn’t it?

The second visit was not until a year ago after our oldest son moved to Brooklyn and got a job working within a few blocks of the site. After nearly a decade of media coverage of the events of 9/11 and all of the associations connected with that event, walking up to the actual place was a powerful and sobering experience. At that time, there was nothing much to see other than what appeared as a giant empty space occupied by cranes.

This year things were different in many ways but the same in many others. The area is now a hotbed of activity, with impressive new buildings soaring skyward, construction workers and equipment everywhere. From the right vantage points, portions of the site are beginning to show signs of what the place will become when it is finished – we could even see an area where new trees are planted. As we walked a circle around the area though, reminders of what happened there are still to be found, both small and large. The memory of coming upon a nearby fire station with its poster filled with the photographs of scores who lost their lives on that date affects me even now as I write this.

This photograph was made as we walked along what I recall as the north side of the site, past the new tower that is rapidly becoming the tallest structure in lower Manhattan. A busy sidewalk travels through here, squeezed between the construction area and existing buildings. This metal wall was on one of those buildings, and it is colored by reflections of people passing by, buildings, and sky.

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

“Shaftway” Loading Dock Doors, Chelsea

August 31, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Loading dock doors of a brick industrial building in Chelsea, New York City.

I made this photograph on my last morning in New York City in late August, when we visited a side street with many galleries in Chelsea. This is in an area, as I understand it, that has been shifting from more or less industrial to galleries and other more “trendy” endeavors now that the High Line park has, along with other developments, made the area more attractive.

As we walked out of (or was it into?) a doorway across the street, the “SHAFTWAY” sign on the green door caught my attention. As I look at the photograph more now I see a number of other things in it that intrigue me that I wasn’t fully aware of when I made the exposure.

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