Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

New York Street, Child with Toy Car

August 25, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A child playing with a toy car on the sidewalk of a busy Manhattan street

I made this photograph on my first real day of shooting in Manhattan. We had arrived the night before, late enough that we only had time to take a cab to where we were staying, have a bite to eat (thanks, Timothy and Margaret!), and fall asleep. The next morning we went over to NYU, where Patty was participating in a music conference for the next five days, and after she got registered I was on my own in Manhattan, and on the prowl with a camera for a good part of the next few days. I often started out with very general plans, but then mostly sort of followed my intuitions as I wandered up and down the island. On this first morning I simply headed uptown toward Grand Central Station with my camera at my side, and began to get in the flow of photographing this busy, dense, and compelling place.

When shooting street I often think a bit like the landscape photographer than I am. This means that I find what I think is a visually interesting place, consider how to compose a shot, and then wait until something or someone interesting enters the frame. However, this shot worked more or less the opposite way. I saw this child, incongruously pushing his combination play car and stroller on a section of this very busy urban sidewalk. Fearing that it might be more than a little creepy to walk up and point my camera at this interesting child, I moved closer to the building wall so that I could instead include him near the edge of a shot of the overall street scene. Placing him so close to the lower left corner obviously made for an unusual composition, though I think it is somehow interesting to see him in a position that seems so peripheral to the rest of the scene. I watched to see if he would do anything interesting, and I made the exposure when he leaned over and looked in my direction. Initially I thought that the photograph might be in color, and as I worked with it the bright colors of taxis seemed to complement the cooler tones of the shaded sidewalk area. But there were problems — that interesting yellow also distracted from the child, and his little “car” was a dark shade of blue. In the end, I had a lot more control over the relative tonality of different parts of the scene with this black and white conversion.

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Morning Musings

Morning Musing – 8/24/14

August 24, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

This “Morning Musing” post is related to the photograph I shared here earlier this today: “Flooded Field, Winter.” I made this photograph last winter on New Year’s Day, when a group of us (friends who are all involved in photography in one way or another) gathered before dawn at a favorite migratory bird location to again welcome the literal dawn of the new year together.

I am aware that no one else see a photograph in the same way that it is seen by the photographer who made it. The backstory of this image reminds me that the viewer, in a sense, can see it more objectively for what it is as a pure visual image, though he or she may be able be able to share with the photographer some of the implications and connections that such a photograph might evoke. The photographer has a unique internal knowledge of and relationship to the photograph that can never be completely understood by the viewer, even by a viewer who might like the photograph a great deal. When I tell you that the photograph was made on a cold and foggy New Year’s Day, in the company of good friends and photographers, you know more about the context, and this knowledge mights shift the way that you understand the photograph, but I can never take you all the way “there.”

The photograph also reminds me of one other wonderful thought. Fall is coming, and then winter, and soon the birds will return to Central Valley, and my friends and I will meet there once again on mornings much like this one. I can’t wait!

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Flooded Field, Winter

August 24, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

The stubble of last year’s crop in a flooded San Joaquin Valley winter field

This photograph comes from a season that seems quite remote today, during the warm late-summer days of mid-August. I made the photograph back on New Year’s Day 2014, when a group of us met in the San Joaquin Valley to welcome the dawn (literally — we arrived before sunrise) of the new year by spending a day photographic migratory birds and the flat and moody Central Valley landscape. Looking at photographs like this one now always reminds me of how quick and how regular the annual cycle is, since we are now considerably closer to New Year’s Day 2015 than the first day of 2014.

This photograph could also be a reminder to the stresses to wildlife from a third drought year and the conversion of the overwhelming majority of the important Central Valley wetlands to farm land. On the positive side, this location is an example of how agriculture and wildlife protection can coexist, since it is farmed in the dry season and then flooded for the birds in the winter. And does it ever attract birds! Here the patterns left by farm machinery are visible in the waters of the shallow ponds where birds were floating on this day.

Morning Musings, Technique

A Bit More on Aperture Selection (Morning Musing for 8/23/14)

August 23, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

(Thanks to a reader who posted a follow up comment on an earlier post — “Making Aperture Selection Easy (Morning Musing for 8/22/14)” — I wrote up a response with a quick explanation of why you might want to be careful about stopping down too far if you are trying to maximize image sharpness. I think it might be useful information for others, too, so I’m sharing it here as a new post.)

Aperture selection, among other things, allows us to control depth of field (DOF)— the range of distances in front of and behind (if not focused on infinity) the subject that is the center of the plane of focus. By choosing larger apertures (such as f/1.4) we narrow the DOF and can throw elements beyond or in front of the main subject out of focus, making them soft and diffused. Choosing smaller apertures (such as f/16) will increase the DOF, and subjects further behind or in front of the primary subject will be much sharper.

Some photographers make a logical leap from “increasing DOF with small apertures makes more things in the frame look sharp” to “smaller apertures are sharper.” It doesn’t actually work quite that way! Continue reading A Bit More on Aperture Selection (Morning Musing for 8/23/14) →

G Dan Mitchell Photography

New York Street, Child with Toy Car

Morning Musing – 8/24/14

Flooded Field, Winter

A Bit More on Aperture Selection (Morning Musing for 8/23/14)

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