Tag Archives: america

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Marina Auto Body

Image Leave a comment
Marina Auto Body
Two women stand in in front to the painted walls of Marina Auto Body, San Francisco

Marina Auto Body. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two women stand in in front to the painted walls of Marina Auto Body, San Francisco

Marina Auto Body is not a place I had previously noticed on my San Francisco street photography walks. I’m a bit surprised, as it it is just a short distance down a side street that I almost always cross when walking from the train station toward the central downtown, and I have photographed other subjects near this intersection. Perhaps this time I missed the walk signal, looked around for a moment, and happened to see it.

I think that I perhaps first noticed the two figures standing in front of the show and set off against the mostly-blue paint of the building. I walked up the street so that I could be directly across the street to photograph — I might have wished to be a bit closer, but I had little choice given the wide and very busy street. I waited, and finally was able to photograph during a break in the traffic. The little building is visually remarkable, with vividly painted scenes on each of the large doors.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Digital Printing

Image Leave a comment
Digital Printing
Wall and sidewalk of a building advertising “digital printing.”

Digital Printing. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Wall and sidewalk of a building advertising “digital printing.”

Sometimes I wonder what people must think if they happen to notice me making street photographs. Take this image for example. I was walking with some sense of purpose back towards the 4th and Townsend Caltrain station, where I would pick up a train heading back down the peninsula following a morning of photography in San Francisco. In a location where most people are similarly focused on getting from point A to point B, usually with heads down, I suddenly stopped, stepped off the sidewalk… and photographed the wall of a nondescript building.

This photograph may be the urban equivalent of the “intimate landscape” image — I certainly think of photographs like this as being landscapes, and this one zeroes in on a very small area of a subject that folks overlook. Being a photographer who prints digitally, the “digital printing” sign had caught my eye when I passed by here a few hours earlier. Now I saw the soft light on the scene, the weathered quality of the wall, the geometry of the subject, and the relationship between the blue bar at the top and the blue quality of the light on the sidewalk.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Climbing The Stairs

Image Leave a comment
Climbing The Stairs
A woman slowly climbs stairs near the entrance to a tunnel, San Francisco

Climbing The Stairs. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A woman slowly climbs stairs near the entrance to a tunnel, San Francisco.

The last time I took one of my quick trips to San Francisco to do street photography was months ago, and I’ve been planning recently to get back up there. Yesterday I finally found time. My photographic ritual there is pretty straightforward: I get up very early and catch a train up the Peninsula, typically arriving by about 7:00am. I travel light, with only the gear that will fit in a very small shoulder bag that doesn’t really look like camera gear. I walk, and this time I wandered close to eight miles over the course of about four hours, traveling through some areas that are run down in interesting ways, through the center of the financial district, and into the Columbus and Grant and Stockton streets areaI.

I enjoy street photography for several reasons. To be honest, as much as I love the natural world, I also love cities, and even more I love wandering through them on foot. Photographically-speaking, they provide a rich lab environment for finding compositions, color, people, and more. Street photography is usually be done unencumbered by the bulky gear I often use for landscapes, and I love the spontaneous aspects of it. This photograph embodies a number of things that I look for when photographing street. I’m always attracted by color and patterns and light — and this scene just inside the end of a tunnel is full of all of these things.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Wetlands, Evening Clouds, Moon

Image Leave a comment
Wetlands, Evening Clouds, Moon
Clouds, darkening evening sky, and the moon abouve wetlands

Wetlands, Evening Clouds, Moon. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Clouds, darkening evening sky, and the moon above wetlands.

The last hours and then moments of the day in a place like this are often magical. There’s frequently a sort of emotional crescendo as the day ends, followed by a quiet coda after the sun set. As evening approaches it is time to make decisions about where to be for the quickly moving events just before and after sunset — when the light changes quickly and the birds are often in motion. Once the golden hour light begins the scene becomes dynamic, with light passing though phases from late day, to golden hour, to post sunset, to twilight, and each has its photographic potential. This is often a period of an hour or more of fairly intense photography.

Then one realizes that the light has truly faded and that night is coming on. There is a release of tension, almost a letting go of the breath, and I become away of the fading light and the quiet. Often there are a few moments when I put the camera down and just stand quietly, taking it in. I made this photograph at the end of a New Year’s Day a couple of years ago, as clouds passed over the wetland ponds and beneath the deepening blue of the twilight sky.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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