Tag Archives: alley

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

Weathered Wall, Covered Window and Can, Fremont District

June 14, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A can is stuck in the grate covering an alley window on a badly weathered and stained wall, Fremont District, Seattle, Washington.

This is also a photograph in the series I made during the hour that I had to shoot along with the Seattle Photowalk folks in early May, when they met up to photograph in the Fremont district of Seattle. I took a one-hour hour “mini-vacation” from the other business that had brought me to Seattle, grabbed a camera, and wandered about making photographs for sixty minutes.

Aside from some technical stuff (e.g. shooting handheld rather than with a tripod, perhaps shooting with just a prime or two rather than zooms, etc.), the secret is that I approach street photography in ways that are not all that different from how I approach nature or landscape photography. In both cases, I may photograph both the larger scene and smaller subjects contained within it. In both cases, I tend to “prowl” for images, even though I do begin with certain ideas of what I might look for and what I might find. Also in both, I think I begin by trying to find things that interest me first, and only then thinking about how to make photographs of them. Here I had seen a skinny little side alley. At first I didn’t see anything in it that was an obvious photographic subject, but for some reason I still wandered into in and just looked about. The first thing that I “saw” was the old wall with its odd patterns, perhaps the result of rain or of previous poorly-done paint jobs. The texture intrigued me, but I wasn’t seeing a photograph of that alone, so I kept looking. It didn’t take long to notice some things placed on or within the wall – some pipes (that’s another photograph) and this odd window, blocked with what looks like a piece of wood and with an old can jammed into the security grill. I made a few photographs and moved on.

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

Door Number Three

May 13, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A loading dock door (#3) and a dilapidated and worn side door in a concrete wall, San Francisco.

There is not a whole lot to write about this photograph, except that it is another in a sequence of photographs that I made in a small alley off of the Embarcadero in San Francisco, an alley that extends between buildings toward the waterfront and which has often been locked up when I have walked by there previously. Since it and several similar alley ways were open on this morning, I took the opportunity to wander into them and photograph some of the old buildings that sit on these waterfront piers, focusing mostly on small details.

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

Chinatown Alley

July 23, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A nearly deserted Chinatown alley lined with trash cans, San Francisco.

On this mid-July morning as I walked from the Caltrain station to the Bay near North Beach, I passed through parts of San Francisco’s Chinatown district. I was there early enough that many of the shops on the short section of Grant Street that I visited were not open, and after making a few photographs there I headed west to Stockton Street where the real action is happening in the early morning. While I’m definitely the outsider here (most people seem to ignore me, though a few seem a bit amused by this guy with the camera), I enjoy visiting and photographing this area far more than the tourist zone down on Grant.

In the morning the place is intensely busy. Trucks line the street and disgorge boxes and boxes of produce and many people seem to be doing their shopping. Crowds line up at the bus stops, and every grocery store and market seems very busy. I don’t take too many photographs, most often focusing on architecture and colors. As I walked along the busy sidewalk and passed this side alley, several things caught my attention. First, unlike Stockton Street, it was almost deserted – a couple of people were walking down the alley and by the time I framed my photograph only one remained. (You’ll have to look closely.) While my first impression was that this was a dilapidated and messy place, upon further thought and observation it is actually very ordered. Considering the number of people in the area and that the alley is used at least partially for loading in and out of shops, there is actually very little litter. Small ramps have been set up in the gutter in a few places and the receptacles are lined up along the sidewalk. I wonder what the meaning is of the two pieces of cardboard stuck behind the pipes on the red wall at the right?

The light was also conducive to shooting here. On this typical San Francisco summer day – e.g. cold and windy and foggy! – the overcast softened the light and allowed it to fill the shadows and intensify some of the colors.

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

Saint Patrick’s Church

July 10, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Black and white photograph of walls, windows, and roof lines of the side of Saint Patrick’s Church, San Francisco.

I don’t know the full history of this church in downtown San Francisco, but I do know that it is visually interesting. It has the appearance of an old cathedral, with the emphasis on old. Parts of the structure appear to be made of reinforced concrete, parts of brick, and a few sections of newer construction. Bits and pieces of all of that appear in this photograph, with some rather old and weathered materials in much of the structure, but with a much more modern-looking outbuilding at lower right.

While there is a large park (Yerba Buena Park) right across the street, much of the other surrounding architecture is quite modern for the most part. Most striking is the deep blue cubic structure of the Contemporary Jewish Museum right next door, but all around much taller and vastly more modern buildings are found. (Some of the light filling the shadows in this photograph is reflected from those buildings.)

I think that this photograph has a lot in common with a number of my photographs of mountains, especially the Sierra Nevada. In fact, I don’t think it is too hard to find parallels to some of the recent photographs of Mount Conness towering above the shorter Polly, Pywiack, and Medlicott Domes near Tenaya Lake along Tioga Pass Road.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: alley

Weathered Wall, Covered Window and Can, Fremont District

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Door Number Three

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Chinatown Alley

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Saint Patrick’s Church

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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.