Tag Archives: black

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Walkway, Lan Su Chinese Garden

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Walkway, Lan Su Chinese Garden - A covered walkway at the Portland Chinese Garden.
A covered walkway at the Portland Chinese Garden.

Walkway, Lan Su Chinese Garden. Portland, Oregon. July 2, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A covered walkway at the Portland Chinese Garden.

After our recent stay in Portland, Oregon, I understand that there is more to the city than beer. Though don’t overlook the beer… ;-) Portland seems to be a city of gardens, at least in the central portion where we spent most of our visit. This may be redundant, but there are beautiful gardens of all types and in a variety of places. We visited nearly a half-dozen, even though that wasn’t the primary goal of our trip. (And, no, it wasn’t the beer, either. But that did figure in our plans, too.)

On this day we were walking around portions of the downtown area, mostly south of the main downtown center. In the afternoon we decided to head north and east a bit and walk into Portland’s Chinatown area. It is a much different place than the more compressed and more touristy Chinatown of San Francisco. Our main goal was the Lan Su Chinese Garden. This garden is a beautiful little marvel, located in an area where you might not expect to find such a thing. Although it occupies a very small downtown block, there is much to see inside, especially if you walk slowly and look carefully. At one point I imagined what it might be like to be in such a place alone, so I made a point of trying to make a few photographs that didn’t include other visitors, such as this black and white photograph of a covered walkway winding along an edge of the garden.

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.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Two Bridges and Fog, San Francisco Bay

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Two Bridges and Fog, San Francisco Bay - Morning fog floats above the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, the Bay Bridge, and Yerba Buena Island.
Morning fog floats above the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, the Bay Bridge, and Yerba Buena Island.

Two Bridges and Fog, San Francisco Bay. San Francisco, California. July 14, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning fog floats above the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, the Bay Bridge, and Yerba Buena Island.

This is certainly not a unique viewpoint for photographing the Golden Gate (and the bridge named after it) and the rest of San Francisco Bay… but I keep returning anyway. While the principal physical elements of the scene – Marin headlands, bridge, the City, bridges, Yerba Buena Island, the East Bay – the conditions of light and atmosphere change constantly. The variations in the fog alone could be the subject of a book, I’m sure! It can come from the west (summer) or the east (winter), it can be high or low (or both at once!), thin or thick, opaque or luminous, static or moving quickly, illuminated by sun or by artificial light at night, and more.

On this morning it was a combination of several of those. There was a sort of thin fog/haze at the lower levels, but the thicker fog was quite high, above the bridge towers and even a bit above my position in the Marin headlands. The fog was beginning to break up, starting to the east and gradually moving westward toward the coast, and when I made this photograph large beams of diffused light were coming through the fog deck and lighting areas around the San Francisco waterfront and even on the bay waters. Lining up the elements of the photograph wasn’t terribly hard once I found the composition I liked, but then I waited for boats for move into or out of the frame (see a large freighter passing between towers of the distant Bay Bridge) and for the light to appear in (as close to) the right places (as one can hope for).

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.

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Pipe Covered Wall, Fire Extinguisher Sign

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Pipe Covered Wall, Fire Extinguisher Sign - A very worn and peeling wall with pipes, conduit, a fire extinguisher sign, and shadows - The Embarcadero, San Francisco
A very worn and peeling wall with pipes, conduit, a fire extinguisher sign, and shadows – The Embarcadero, San Francisco

Pipe Covered Wall, Fire Extinguisher Sign. San Francisco, California. July 8, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A very worn and peeling wall with pipes, conduit, a fire extinguisher sign, and shadows – The Embarcadero, San Francisco.

This is a more or less random bit of wall in a small alley leading from the Embarcadero to some old buildings on one of the old piers along the east shoreline of San Francisco. (I need to get back up there soon. There was a recent fire in the area and now I’m wondering if it affected any of these little spots I photograph.)

I am a bit of a sucker – and who isn’t? – for old worn walls, especially when they are crisscrossed by pipes and conduit and when they hold various valves and meters of the sort that in more modern structures might be hidden from view. In this case, I made the photograph in relatively “harsh” light – it was still morning, but no longer the very early soft, warm light. In fact, it was that very light that created another element of this scene that attracted me, namely the very wide shadows from the very narrow pipes. I liked other small details too – the “FIRE EXT” sign, worn and now covered by conduit, with no fire extinguisher to be seen; what must be a much older “sign” about a third of the way in from the right, which now seems to be completely blank; that interesting interruption of the wall near its base but a chunk of steel covered with rivets.

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.

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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Aurora Bridge, Seattle

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Tower and steel structures beneath the Aurora Bridge, Seattle, Washington
Aurora Bridge, Seattle – Tower and steel structures beneath the Aurora Bridge, Seattle, Washington

Aurora Bridge, Seattle. Seattle, Washington. May 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tower and steel structures beneath the Aurora Bridge, Seattle, Washington.

In early May I was briefly in Seattle on personal business, and I found myself with a free couple of hours that coincided with a Seattle Photo Walk in the Fremont district – so I left my other business behind, grabbed camera and a couple primes, and headed to the meet-up at the statue of Lenin. Really – it is a long story. ;-)

For those who don’t know, there is a waterfront along the edge of Fremont – the waterway connecting Lake Washington to the Puget Sound by way of the Ballard Locks. North of the water is a more hilly area, and Aurora Avenue crosses from there heading south over the water by way of the Aurora Bridge, which stands high above the water and above Fremont. Almost as soon as I started my “photo walk” in Fremont, I knew that I wanted to wander on over towards the bridge to see what I could find. It turns out that there is a recreational trail that passes alongside and under the bridge, so I walked down that way and made a series of handheld photographs from underneath this impressive structure.

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.