Tag Archives: apartments

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Woman on Balcony

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Woman on Balcony
A woman sits on the fire escape balcony of a brick apartment building

Woman on Balcony. New York City. July 30, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A woman sits on the fire escape balcony of a brick apartment building

The first stop on our five-week “grand tour” was New York City — our oldest son and our daughter-in-law were getting married. This is the longest the two of us have ever been “on the road,” and before we were finished five weeks later we had been to New York City, London, Paris, Heidelberg, briefly in Munich and Bologna, then the Chianti region between Florence and Siena in Italy, and finally in Florence for a few days. Whew! One thing that came out of visiting all of these places, with between five or six days and up to eight days in each place, is that we got both a sense of the character of each place (though incomplete, of course) and we were able to see the contrasts between them. New York City certainly has its own character, somewhere on the spectrum closer to London than Florence perhaps.

The entire New York visit was not taken up by wedding events, so we did have a chance to get out and explore New York a bit, which we always enjoy. On this afternoon we ended up at the High Line Park, walking part of its length on a hot and humid day the eventually led to some light rain. (That seems to be a theme for us near the High Line.) Since I’ve been to this park before I have gotten to know some of the surroundings, and this particular brick wall of windows and fire escape stairways always attracts my attention. And this isn’t the first time I’ve found an interesting person on that very balcony — somewhere in my collections I’m pretty certain that I have another photograph of someone on this exact same balcony, sitting outside on a similar hot and humid day before the rain arrived.

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

Laundry, Fire Escape, Chinatown

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Laundry, Fire Escape, Chinatown
Laundry, Fire Escape, Chinatown

Laundry, Fire Escape, Chinatown. San Francisco, California. July 12, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Laundry is hung to dry on fire escape above the streets of Chinatown, San Francisco.

This is a photography from one of my early morning photo-walks in San Francisco last summer. I take the train to the City very early in the morning and then walk. A lot. On this morning I passed through Chinatown on my way to the North Beach area fairly early in the morning – well before the tourist crowds showed up. A few blocks from the main tourist area it is a different world with markets opening up, deliveries being made, and busy people everywhere. I was working in more or less traditional street photographer style – to the extent that someone armed with a DSLR can do that ! – and shooting with just a 50mm prime lens on the camera and trying to work quickly as images presented themselves.

I imagine that many people who pass through here may easily be so focused on the activity at the street level that they might not look up. It often strikes me as surprising that in areas where so much is going on at street level – many people, colorful shop fronts, lots of action – the fronts of buildings right above present a completely different appearance. The first thing that caught my attention here was the laundry festooning the fire escape landings. But I also like the geometry of dark landings, ladders, and pipes against the lighter stucco wall, and the wonderful light coming through the morning haze from upper right and casting the lined shadows across the walls of the building.

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

Reflections in Curved Window

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Reflections in Curved Window
Reflections in Curved Window

Reflections in Curved Window. San Francisco, California. July 12, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A curved window on the Portside Building reflects a street scene near the San Francisco waterfront.

And now for something quite different from recently posted photographs…

I made this photograph while walking in San Francisco last summer. I’m intrigued by reflections and by scenes holding multiple layers or even multiple layered sub-scenes, so when I found this curved window I had to try to shoot it. For me the first thing I see is the cross-shaped pattern of the metallic bars separating the panes of glass. Looking more closely at what first seems to be just shiny and silver, I see quite a few colors and patterns, especially in the horizontal bars. On the other side of the window is a bit of the interior of the building – a white wall with its own curved shape, the end of a curved cushioned seat, and a dark area opening further into the interior on the right, within which a few shining lights are visible. Then there is the world in the reflections in the glass. (I mostly managed to exclude myself from the reflections, though you might be able to find a bit of me if you look very carefully! ) A person is framed in the lower right quarter of the frame against a background of a warped and curving street and sidewalk. The upper right section features some clearing fog over the Bay and a bit of an overhang in front of the building. The reflections at lower left are faint, though a cross walk can be seen. At upper left is a typical city scene with a traffic signal, wires, and the front of an urban building.

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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

Brooklyn Bridge Cables, Lower East Side Buildings

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Brooklyn Bridge Cables, Lower East Side Buildings
Brooklyn Bridge Cables, Lower East Side Buildings

Brooklyn Bridge Cables, Lower East Side Buildings. New York, New York. August 19, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Buildings of the lower east side of Manhattan, seen through the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge.

My son kept suggesting a walk across – or at least on to – the Brooklyn Bridge, so when the weather finally cleared up on our last full day in New York City and we found ourselves wandering around Lower Manhattan near the entrance to the pedestrian walkway across the bridge, we really had no choice.

It is hard – perhaps impossible? – to make a truly new photograph of the bridge, at least for this first time photographer of this New York icon. I do have a few frames of the masses of cables ascending to the tower closest to Manhattan, a scene we’ve all seen before, and I probably won’t be able to resist posting at least one of them eventually

I have no idea whether or not a shot like this one is familiar to those who have seen more photos of the bridge than I have, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it is a typical view. In any case, I was fascinated by the dense web of cables, the fact that they are much thinner than bridge cables that I’m familiar with, and the appearance of the many buildings along the east short of Manhattan Island both north and south of the bridge.

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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