Tag Archives: balcony

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

Brick Wall, Balcony Shadows

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Brick Wall, Balcony Shadows
Shadows from metal balconies slant across brick wall

Brick Wall, Balcony Shadows. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Shadows from metal balconies slant across brick wall

I don’t think I can up with a comprehensive list of all of the variations on urban and street subjects, but there are a lot of them. You can, of course, focus on photographing people — whether street portraits, with our without the subject’s cooperation, or anything up to groups and crowds. You can treat the urban environment as its own sort of landscape, looking for form and color and light in the familiar ways. You can think of it as a way of simply making a record of transitory things that will soon be changed or bone. It can focus on architecture. And the list goes on.

I think of this as a sort of street landscape. This New York wall, at this time of day and during this season, transforms into something that I can’t imagine the builders understood when they constructed it. My bet is that they were making a practical brick wall, with practical windows, a simple pair of balconies (probably designed to save money), and fire escapes. But, as was apparent when I walked past in December, becomes a canvas for a wild conjunction of shapes and textures and shadows.

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Brick Wall, Windows

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Brick Wall, Windows
Windows, a metal chimney, and a brick wall in Manhattan

Brick Wall, Windows. New York City. December 28, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Windows, a metal chimney, and a brick wall in Manhattan

This is yet another photograph from the High Line Park in Manhattan, made on the same gray day as the photograph I shared yesterday. The soft, gray light fills in the shadows and reveals details that are not visible in midday sunshine light.

The geometries of old brick buildings with exterior detail of fire escapes, pipes and wires fascinate me, and the elevated perspective from this location allows straight-on photographs of the subject. Yet, while making these photographs it did occur to me that people living along this park must, from time to time, get a bit tired of thousands of folks wandering by outside their windows and some of them (us!) stopping to photograph.

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

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

San Francisco Urban Buildings

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San Francisco Urban Buildings
Worn and frequently painted front walls of urban San Francisco buildings

San Francisco Urban Buildings. San Francisco, California. May 29, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Worn and frequently painted front walls of urban San Francisco buildings

I have a few more in this urban/street photography set from a recent day spent photographing in San Francisco. I took the train to The City, headed north along the waterfront, then cut inland at Market Street before wandering up past Chinatown (avoiding Grant) and through North Beach before heading back to where I started. There is a lot to see on such a walk on a weekday in San Francisco!

Usually when I pass through the Chinatown area I forego the walk up touristy Grant Street, and instead cut across (and uphill!) to take smaller streets and to miss a lot of the usual stuff. There are lots of little nooks and crannies here, and the buildings offer diverse and sometimes wild visual treats. These buildings, which certainly look run down from the outside, present an incredible surface of textures and colors, much of which probably evolved by accident as people painted out the ubiquitous graffiti.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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