Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Construction Site, Hudson Yards

January 2, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Construction work on the foundation of a new building at Hudson Yards

Along a section of the west shoreline of New York City there is a monumental construction project, mostly above the Hudson Yards, where there is a huge train yard. As I understand it, because the train yard cannot be moved, the gigantic towers being constructed here must be built on top of the rail yard, which seems like an almost unimaginable construction challenge. When finished, the train yard will still be there, but beneath the absolutely huge collection of towers housing businesses and residences. The project has already been going on for years, and I understand that it will not be complete until something after 2020.

Since the new upper end of the High Line Park wraps around the site, there are plenty of opportunities to photograph the work from good vantage points. Most of my photographs were looking across the site or up at the towers, but in this case I simply leaned out over the edge of the High Line and pointed the camera almost straight down, where a small crew was working on the foundation of some new structure amidst a scene of great complexity.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Green and Blue Wall

January 1, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Graffiti and poster remnants on a green and blue Brooklyn brick wall.

We arrived in New York late the day before, in time to check in to lodgings and meet our “kids” (two sons and their fiances) for dinner, but there wasn’t a lot of time to get around and see and photograph. The next morning we met up with our youngest son in the more or less the Williamsburg area, and we wandered about, hitting the waterfront of the East River and then finding lunch.

During any bit of urban wandering I’m almost always on the lookout for photographs. Photographing on the street is an exercise in working quickly and being versatile. In most cases I don’t have a specific subject in mind — the closest to that may be a general idea of looking a buildings or people or water or interiors or… In this case I was in an area with a lot of older construction, and we passed through a few spots that were obviously the hope to lots of posters and graffiti. Oddly, since people are sometimes trying to paint out the tagging, there can be many layers of often new paint, posters in various states of decay, and odds and ends of painted words and images. Here the remnants of a poster partially obscured a hand drawn heart on a wall that appeared to have been painted in two not quite identical shades of blue-green.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: New York City

Two Bridges, East River

December 31, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The East River and Manhattan Bridge, photographed from the Brooklyn Bridge, winter.

During our recent December 2015 week-plus in New York City we stayed only a five or ten minute walk from the Brooklyn end of the Brooklyn Bridge. Primarily that put us in a great area for food and other things and very close to a bunch of subway stations, but it also meant that a walk on the bridge was almost inevitable. On this day we had a date at the Metropolitan Opera in the evening, but we found ourselves with just enough time to wander onto the bridge before we had to go to Manhattan.

This bridge is, of course, a tremendously popular place these days. Even on a cold day after Christmas there were hordes of people walking across. I think I’ve made the classic photograph of the bridge towers and cables before, so I was looking for something that wasn’t that. As I walked along I noticed how the Manhattan Bridge towers (and other urban landscape elements in other photographs not shown here) lined up between the cables, and I soon found this spot that placed parts of the bridge structure in the foreground.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Annual Favorites

2015 Favorite Photographs

December 30, 2015 G Dan Mitchell 12 Comments

Every December I review the past year’s work, revisit twelve months of photographs and experiences, and share a set of my favorite images. I select a set that includes a variety of my photographs: The Sierra Nevada, Central Valley, and desert landscapes; seascapes; wildlife; a bit of night photography and some urban and street photography. Thanks for taking a moment to look at the photographs.

Enjoy!

G Dan Mitchell
December 30, 2015

Click on any of the following 2015 Favorite Photographs to produce a larger view, then click through the photographs in series.