Category Archives: Photographs: Urban/Street

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

La Churreria, Dusk

Image January 28, 2020 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

La Churreria cafe at dusk, Nolita, Manhattan.

On this afternoon we met up with our oldest son, who works in Manhattan and lives a subway commute away, and we took a long, wandering walk south from Grand Central Station to near the southern tip of Lower Manhattan. Along the way we steered clear of the more major streets and often ended up on what pass for side streets. (Though most north-south streets in Manhattan or fairly well-traveled.) As we walked on this winter afternoon the light gradually shifted over toward evening, and by the time I made this photograph it was twilight.

Logically, the scene is perhaps nothing special and probably not all that different from a thousand other similar scenes throughout Manhattan — a somewhat grimy (at least to those of us from other places) street lined with lots of interesting little shops, where evening lights were coming on and casting an inviting glow onto the sidewalk. I regret not stopping here to grab a churro after reading about the place a bit after we returned home — it turns out that they had a take-out window, so we could have paused on our walk.

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.

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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

In Storage

Image January 22, 2020 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Casts of antiquities stored in Manhattan.

While visiting Manhattan in last December we ended up in an older, somewhat nondescript building not far from Grand Central Station where, among other things, an organization focused on classical architecture has offices. On a day when the place was mostly closed we were able to visit the building and, of course, we made a few photographs.

This room was fascinating. It is full of casts of various bits and pieces of statues and (I think) elements taken from various architecture. It is my understanding that the institutions from which these specimens come now may have originals in their place, so exhibiting the casts is no longer so attractive. But walking through a room full of them in storage on a cold winter day is an unusual experience. Here the warm interior light on the objects contrasts with the very blue outdoor light of a winter Manhattan day.

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Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Iconic Magazines

Image January 21, 2020 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Mulberry Iconic Magazines at Kenmare and Mulberry Streets, Manhattan.

When I travel I often try to figure out what factors give a place its “quality,” that sometimes vague sense of the place that sets it apart from other locations. Sometimes, of course, certain aspects are pretty obvious — only one city has an Empire State Building, there’s only one Eiffel Tower, no other bridge is quite like the Golden Gate Bridge, not every city is filled with canals, and so on. One factor that I notice in quite a few large cities, but in a particular way in Manhattan, is the difference between the objective grittiness and even ugliness of many exteriors versus the often warm and inviting quality of personal interiors — people’s homes, many eating places, certain stores, and more.

Those worlds aren’t complete disconnected though, and especially in winter I feel that spots where light spills out from those interiors into the public space can connect them. This one happens to be on a street corner that might not otherwise seem particularly special, but it contrasts greatly with the rather grim exertion of the upper floors and with the street in front. (For the record, I do realize that my description above is not quite air-tight…)

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Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Restaurant For Rent

Image January 19, 2020 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A group of passers-by along the sidewalk in front of a Manhattan building underoing renovation.

There’s a conversation I’ve had a few times with painters in which we’ve addressed one of the most important differences between photography and painting. In most cases (ignoring exceptions that come with certain approaches to painting for the moment) the painter “knows” every element of the piece since he or she placed them all. It would be very surprising (though not quite impossible) for the artist to later discover some element that had previously been unobserved or that wasn’t where it was placed. A photograph is usually (though, again, there are a few exceptions) quite different in that the photographer can rarely know every single element of the subject. Instead, the photographer finds a scene/subject whose broad outlines and primary focus are “right,” makes a photograph (and, yes, there are a few other steps I’ve left out) and cannot know every single component of the image, leaving the possibility of later discovery.

I think this is true in just about all photography, but it is especially the case with street photography, where the scene is often very complex and the elements and their interactions are evolving quickly and constantly. Often the photography must work very quickly and intuitively, frequently with little time for reflection before making an exposure. And then, what we end up with is a tiny fractional slice of what was “happening,” a slice that takes on a sense of painting-like permanence, even though it derived from something that was wholly in flux.

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