Tag Archives: black and white

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

Person, Stairs, Wall, Windows

February 9, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A person ascends stairs inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

On this day, halfway through our late-December week in New York City, we finally had some bad weather. Not as bad as the snowstorms that shut down the city a week or so later, but enough cold rain that walking around Manhattan was starting to seem a lot less appealing than it had been the day before. We decided that the weather would make it a good day for indoor activities, so we got on the subway and headed up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art… where we joined what seemed like about half of New York City in using the Museum as a rainy day activity!

If you have been there, you know that this museum is huge – far too big to see the whole thing in a day. We’ve gone a number of times, each time poking into new areas that we had not seen before and visiting a few familiar areas. This time we visited some galleries displaying photography and finally ended up way in the back of the facility in a section of newer architecture. This seemed like an odd spot to me. What here looks like the exterior windows of a building, with a sidewalk in front, is actually inside the museum. If I recall correctly, it is in an area where new and old architecture meet.

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

Walkway, Manhattan Bridge

February 8, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A nearly empty walkway on the Manhattan Bridge

New York City’s Manhattan Bridge is not the Brooklyn Bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge is a popular tourist destination and full of pedestrians and cyclists in nice weather, and even sees quite a crowd in conditions that are less appealing. We began this day’s visit to Brooklyn by walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was cold – in the twenties, if I recall correctly, but there were still hundreds of other people taking this walk and enjoying the expansive views from the walkway, which is high on the bridge and above the vehicle traffic.

We returned via the Manhattan Bridge… which is most definitely not the Brooklyn Bridge. The first hint was that we were told to expect the thunderous sound of passing subway trains every couple of minutes – they travel above ground to cross this bridge. Once on the bridge, it is clear that no one expects a lot of foot traffic here – and there is not much. Instead of a beautiful walkway, high above traffic and with views in all directions, this walkway is narrow and cramped and bounded by metal walls and cyclone fences. You can’t really see any view to the north of the bridge, and the view to the south is blocked by the fence. In many places there is a lot of graffiti. This is not the Brooklyn Bridge – but I recommend this walk, too.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Sea Stacks, Big Sur Coastline

February 3, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The receding ridges of the Big Sur coastline arc southward into winter haze beyond a pair of large sea stacks.

On the final day of January we did the “down and back” drive through the Big Sur area of California’s Pacific Coast Highway. This is my favorite time of year in this part of California. At one point along the drive I made a comment (as I often do while passing through here at this time of year) about how this weather felt more like a “typical summer day” than like a “typical winter day” – and then I quickly caught myself and recalled that “typical summer days” here often feature thick fog, wind, and cold. On the other hand, between Pacific storms – or during a dry year like this one – a typical winter day may feature brilliant sunshine and long vistas and temperatures that are as warm as those of summer here.

As the day developed I shifted from looking for the effects of first and early light coming over ridges and into canyons, or the thinning offshore clouds. Instead I started to think about the long coastal vistas, the intense reflection of the ocean seen from high places (which always makes me think of molten metal), and the way that the backlit atmosphere highlights receding ridges as they disappear into the distance. As we came over one of the high points and around the corner the road began to drop and this view appeared in front of us, with two sea stacks in the foreground (one of which contains a natural arch) and the rugged coastline curving toward the south.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Chinatown, New York City

January 26, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Looking up Madison Street from the Manhattan Bridge, New York City

At least I think this is Madison Street, as best as I can tell by looking at maps now that I am back in California. We were up on the Manhattan Bridge when I made this photograph, high above the street level as the bridge crosses over the east shore of Manhattan. We had walked over from Brooklyn, sharing the bridge with the noisy trains and looking at the extensive graffiti on rooftops.

Our hotel was more or less on the other side of China Town on Canal Street, and we had been into that area several times, starting with a visit to a Chinese restaurant where we joined a big group of family and friends on the evening that we arrived from California. But we had not been all the way through the area to the east shoreline. The Manhattan Bridge provides some very interesting views down into this section of Manhattan. Before this point we had passed next to and above the graffiti covered rooftops that I mentioned above. Here we could look directly down on this street and up toward its end point some blocks in the distance.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: black and white

Person, Stairs, Wall, Windows

Walkway, Manhattan Bridge

Sea Stacks, Big Sur Coastline

Chinatown, New York City

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.