Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

Blue Water, Blue Sky, Boat

June 30, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Blue light and morning haze over San Francisco Bay

I’m channeling the blue in this photograph, shot along the San Francisco waterfront earlier this month. The facts are straightforward — I was walking along the San Francisco Bay waterfront early in the morning, as I like to do during the summer. There was some morning haze above the bay, left over from the dissipating fog, and it took on a blue coloration from the sky. Across the bay the giant cranes of the Port of Oakland are visible along the East Bay shoreline, nearer a boat passes near the end of breakwater.

I think that some people might wonder at all the city photographs, especially since so much of my photograph is of the natural world — the coast, the Sierra, migratory birds, the desert. I photograph the city for quite a few reasons. For one, it is closer than some of those other subjects, and at a minimum photographing in the city give me a chance to keep my eye “in tune.” In some ways, urban shooting can do more for this than more photography of the natural world, since the urban environment often presents such simplified forms and because I often have to work quickly and rely on (and thereby reinforce) my visual instincts. In addition, I just have to admit that there is a part of me that likes the urban world with its intense and compressed experiences. (Not that this photograph shows that part of it!)

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

Walking Man, Columns

June 29, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A man walks between architectural columns, San Francisco

This is what I think of as a “compose and wait” shot, something I often do when shooting street photography. I find an interesting composition — here the series of columns, with shadows falling across them, and the mottled foreground light reflected from the windows of nearby downtown buildings — and then I wait for a person to walk into the frame and provide a center of visual interest.

This approach provides an interesting combination of intentional and carefully composed elements (the selection of overall subject and its composition) with elements that are almost completely out of my control — I have no idea who will walk into the frame, exactly where they will be, or what they will be doing. Things tend to happen very quickly, too. Obviously, I could not really track this subject into the frame, as he was behind these large columns, so I have to react quickly. In truth, when I work this way I often end up making quite a few exposures that just don’t quite work… but if I’m lucky it may all fall together in a single frame.

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

Concrete Landscape

June 28, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A curving freeway ramp encircles a downtown building in the urban landscape of San Francisco

Another morning trip to San Francisco, another walk through the City, and another photograph of urban landscapes. This photograph is from a mid-June morning walk that started at the Caltrain station, headed over toward China Basin, and then ambled back toward Market Street before looping back to the trains station.

Several freeways cut through this section of downtown San Francisco: 101 on its north-south route, 280 arriving from the Peninsula, and 80 connecting to the East Bay. Here the freeway is high above the city, which has the advantage of keeping city streets open but the disadvantage of creating a large path of somewhat seeding “beneath the freeway” areas and sometimes forcing the city itself to conform to the contours and paths of the highways. In some cases the result can be interesting, and in this location where this strange landscape of vertical columns and nested curves is the result.

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Blue Water, Blue Sky, Boat

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Walking Man, Columns

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Concrete Landscape

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Gated Pier

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

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