Tag Archives: angles

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

Bridge, Olympic Sculpture Park

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Bridge, Olympic Sculpture Park
Bridge, Olympic Sculpture Park

Bridge, Olympic Sculpture Park. Seattle, Washington. January 1, 2008. © Copyright 2008 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A bridge crosses railroad tracks at the Olympic Sculpture Park, Washington.

Back in 2008 I travelled to Seattle on mostly family business. I arrived a bit early and ended up spending some time wandering around the Olympic Sculpture Park, a place I enjoy both for the art and for the architecture and other features of this public space.

The bridge across the railroad tracks had interested me previously, but I’ve found it a difficult subject to photograph – somewhat surprisingly, since it seems to me like such an obvious thing to photograph. So in this image I more or less obscured most of the bridge itself, leaving not much more than the white vertical supports along its exterior and its overall shape and mass. I thought that the relationships between the texture of the metal bridge and the concrete underneath was interesting, as were some of the relationships between various shapes and angles. As I have done in a few other recent photographs, I played around with “pure” color and black and white renditions of the image – in the end deciding to sort of split the difference, thinking that a somewhat de-saturated color image might be most in line with my memory of the place and the scene on that winter day.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Juxtaposed Buildings With Shadows and Reflections

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Juxtaposed Buildings With Shadows and Reflections
Juxtaposed Buildings With Shadows and Reflections

Juxtaposed Buildings With Shadows and Reflections. San Francisco, California. July 8, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The overlapping structures of downtown buildings covered with reflections and shadows, San Francisco.

I made this photograph while walking up Market Street in San Francisco on this early July morning, dodging fast-walking pedestrians and bunches of tourists. I wasn’t certain of what I would shoot here on this day, and I was actually equipped more for shooting street level scenes than this sort of thing, in that I was traveling light with only a few basic prime lenses. But when I visit here, I’m almost always fascinated by the juxtapositions of different types of architecture, patterns of shadows and reflected light, the effect of perspective when looking up from the street, and the odd similarities to some of the rugged landscapes that I also like to photograph.

I’m not good about paying attention to the identity of the buildings, so while I could certainly locate them again quickly I’m afraid I can’t name them! I’ve photographed both before, and I was already very aware of the reflection patterns that appear in the windows of the darker building on the left, creating a criss-cross pattern against the lines of its own windows. There are more subtle effects of light on the lighter surface of the building on the right. Reflections from windows above and to the right cast diagonal lines of faint light down and across this part of the building, and below that there is a faint pattern of darker lines which are shadows from the light reflecting through the horizontal structure at the far right margin. (Being a fan of such things, I also like the fact that this open structure creates dark shadow patterns beyond and to its right and lighter shadow patterns across the whole face of the building. Yet other buildings are reflected, slightly distorted, in the large windows set in the bright wall.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

People, MoMA

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People, MoMA
People, MoMA

People, MoMA. Museum of Modern Art, New York City. August 18, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People moving on multiple levels of lobby and walkways at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

I’ve been sitting on this photograph for a while, but I’ll interrupt the recent series of Sierra Nevada photographs to insert something more urban.

The photograph was made handheld inside a central atrium-like area of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, a space from which layers of walkways could be seen. Although the slow shutter speed was somewhat a matter of necessity (but not totally) it also allowed me to let the moving figures blur, which suggests their motion more than would a faster shutter speed. I also removes the specific features of many of the closer people and lets them function more as generic figures in the image. There is more going on in the scene than might be apparent with a cursory glance.

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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: People, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

People on Walkway, MoMA

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People on Walkway, MoMA
People on Walkway, MoMA

People on Walkway, MoMA. Museum of Modern Art, New York City. August 18, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People walking quickly along elevated walkway at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Shooting hand-held and at a very low shutter speed while visiting the museum, I made a series of exposures looking down into the space of the museum with the many criss-crossing walkways and other structural forms lit by a combination of light coming from nearby windows and artificial lighting, in which the people moving through the space are blurred by their rapid motion.

Although I suppose that a lot of my landscape/architecture photographs tend toward high resolution, detail, and sharpness I’m also fond of photographs that eschew that stuff! This image combines several things that interest me quite a bit. One, not surprisingly perhaps, is the view of the urban world as its own type of landscape – my interest in landscape is not limited to only those of the natural world. I’m also fascinated by forms and shapes, especially those formed in this kind of constructed environment. And, finally perhaps, I have this idea that I explore from time to time of contrasting the fixed and solid objects of the man-made world with the transient and dynamic motion of its inhabitants.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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