Tag Archives: art

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Mural, Parking Lot

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Mural, Parking Lot
A large mural featuring two faces, above a Manhattan parking lot.

Mural, Parking Lot. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A large mural featuring two faces, above a Manhattan parking lot.

One of the things I like to do while making street photograph is look for odd, unusual juxtapositions. There are plenty of these in virtually any big city environment, since these places usually bring together a wide variety of people, activities, structures, and more. Street art and murals add another image element to the mix. There are some oddly disparate elements here: the two large figures, cars on lifts, and a couple of people at the lower left.

The mural on this building’s wall features two figures overlooking the street in a somewhat ominous manner. I don’t know the identity of the one on the right but the one on the left appears to be from Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” — which injects an interesting flavor into this street scene. There are other elements here that I find fascinating. I’ll leave most of them to viewers to discover, but that double vertical “dashed line” of windows is intriguing.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Mural, Midtown Manhattan

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Mural, Midtown Manhattan
Pedestrians work in front of a building featuring a colorful OKUDART mural in midtown Manhattan.

Mural, Midtown Manhattan. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Pedestrians work in front of a building featuring a colorful OKUDART mural in midtown Manhattan.

Something fun to share today — a photograph of this spectacular mural-covered building in Midtown Manhattan, featuring the work of Spanish artist Okuda. It isn’t unusual for me to (selectively) include street art in my street photographs, especially when the work is interesting and fits into the larger street landscape. On the other hand, it sometimes feels a little odd to feature someone else’s art in my own photographic work. In this case, I think it is as much about an aspect of New York City as anything else… so I’m going with it.

I was initially photographing most people (and to a lesser extent buildings) as we walked around Manhattan this past August. I made several other photographs of people, often in crosswalks, as we passed through this area. But this building is so striking that I made a couple of exposures of it as I passed by. One thing leads to another, and later I looked up the building and the artist and discovered that Okuda has work all over the world.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

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Photographs: France, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Empty Lot, Paris #2

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Empty Lot, Paris #2
An empty lot with graffiti in Paris, a 2022 rendition.

Empty Lot, Paris #2. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

An empty lot with graffiti in Paris, a 2022 rendition.

Almost any time I open up an old photograph for some reason other than pure curiosity — and sometimes for that reason, too — I reconsider it and make some minor adjustments that seem like improvements. That might seem odd in today’s world of digital post-processing and inkjet printing. Back in the film era, every print was a unique rendition, the result of physical acts in the darkroom during the printing process. It was literally impossible to do what is the norm today — to make every print exactly the same as the others. All of this is a long way of saying that I don’t see why an early version of a photograph should be the final say on it.

Recently I re-opened this photograph, made a few years back on an evening walk around the Montmartre area in Paris. It was surprising to find this empty lot in a crowded area and to note that it appears to have been empty for some time. There’s a lot going on in the scene, but that blue portrait catches my attention.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

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

Photographs: France, Photographs: People, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Je Suis Bleu: Bicycle Man

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Je Suis Bleu: Bicycle Man
“Je Suis Bleu: Bicycle Man” — A man rides past a wall covered with street art, Le Marais.

I have been writing a new installment for my “A Photograph Exposed” series, where I write in depth about one of my favorite photographs. The photograph in question, which I regard as one of my best, features a group of three women photographed in front of this street art-covered wall. As part of the writing process, I went back to view other files made at about the same time — for reasons that will make sense when I share the article. In doing so I found other photographs of this scene that I like. In fact, if the “three women” photograph had not turned out, I might well have shared this one years ago!

I am fascinated by the experience of going back to forgotten image files and “discovering” work for the first time. There is a difference in how we see photographs that we have just made (and which we associate with the immediate experience of making them) and how we see the same photographs after time has passed. I think that, in some ways, we see the images more objectively in the latter case — perhaps we can “see” them as what they are more than as what we expected them to be.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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