Tag Archives: balcony

Brick Wall, Windows

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.
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San Francisco Urban Buildings

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 | FacebookGoogle+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email


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

Gated Doorway, Wall

Gated Doorway, Wall - Gated entryways and exterior walls, San Francisco.
Gated entryways and exterior walls, San Francisco.

Gated Doorway, Wall. San Francisco, California. July 15, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Gated entryways and exterior walls, San Francisco.

As an Official Aficionado of Geometry, I found this more or less nondescript front of some San Francisco housing fascinating. The location is nothing special, being perhaps a few blocks up from the touristy Fishermans Wharf are and down an anonymous side street that I happened to turn onto for reasons that I can no longer recall. At street level, the walls are less walls than places to contain other things: gated entry-ways to apartments, garage doors, windows and so on. Little space is left empty.

The shapes include lots of vertical and horizontal lines and almost nothing (aside from the edges of the metal “thing” above the central gate and a bit of the concrete next to the garage door) that isn’t moving in one of those two directions. The central gate of rust colored metal dominates the scene. While I imagine that behind the gate is someone’s nice, comfortable home, the gate itself reminds me of something I might expect to see in a prison! To the left is another security gate, thought its bars are horizontal. There are a couple of surprising bits of color, too. The red at the bottom of the main gate, which I assume is there for the safety of people who might trip on that bit of a step, is matched by the bright red of the small extended window that is just barely intruding into the upper left corner of the frame.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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.

Man Talking on Cell Phone

Man Talking on Cell Phone
Man Talking on Cell Phone

Man Talking on Cell Phone. San Francisco, California. July 14, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Man sitting on a bench in front of a San Francisco building and talking on his cell phone.

The first time I worked on this photograph, I made a decision to work it up as a black and white image. However, when I returned to it a month or so ago, I felt like it might be interesting as a color photograph as well.

There is nothing all that special about the location itself – it is on a small street in an area that might be thought of as along the edges of downtown San Francisco. It is not too far to typical large downtown buildings, but here it seems that many might residences and rental units, and many on this street are connected with the Academy of Arts College (or is it “university” now?) facilities that are spread all around the city. I’m intrigued by the interesting shapes and colors and textures of these San Francisco buildings, that often embody some strange combination of a great deal of order (carefully painted rectangular white window frames), utility (the fire escape being almost the most prominent thing on the front of the building), and little oddities (the benches on a slanting sidewalk and guy talking obliviously on his cell phone).

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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.