Tag Archives: blue

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Night, Photographs: People, Photographs: Urban/Street

Person Sitting Behind Blue Sign, 7th Avenue

August 27, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Night photograph of a person sitting behind a blue sign along 7th Avenue near Madison Square Garden on a summer evening in downtown New York.

On our last night in Manhattan we needed pizza – we bracketed our visit with New York pizza on the first and last night. (We had lots of great food in between, but that is perhaps a story for another post.) So we headed out of our hotel and up 7th Avenue near twilight. My son – who shoots old film cameras these days – and I grabbed our cameras to see what we could shoot. Keeping things simple, I just stuck a 50mm lens on my camera, cranked the ISO, and shot quickly as we moved through the crowds. Nearby there was a building with a “sign” that moved blue text up and down the front of a building and across part of the sidewalk. Sitting behind a section of the garish sign I saw this man sitting quietly.

This photograph is 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: Textures, Photographs: Urban/Street

Standard Hotel, Clouds, and Airplane

August 24, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

An airplane crosses a cloud-filled New York City sky above the Standard Hotel at the High Line Park in Chelsea.

This hotel straddling the High Line Elevated Park in New York City presents a striking appearance, especially when the right clouds are reflected in its glass-window surface. We were in the area on a summer evening when the sky was filled with interesting clouds, and by the time we finished walking to and then along the elevated path of the High Line park we had seen it from quite a few angles.

This was my first visit to New York City in a decade, and I have to say that coming to terms with it as a photographic subject is a tall task for someone trying to take in the whole thing for (not quite) the first time. I do a lot of street and urban photography, but usually in places with which I’m familiar – San Francisco is a short train ride from where I live, so I photograph there a lot. For me, it takes some time to get beyond the overwhelming first impressions and settle down and achieve a level of comfort with the place. There were days in New York when, despite being in the midst of tremendous numbers of photographic opportunities, I found it almost impossible to figure out what to shoot. And there were also certain times when “the light came on” and I made a lot of photographs, including this evening.

I need to go back…

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

The Standard Hotel and Clouds

August 22, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The windows of the Standard Hotel reflect clouds and sky above the High Line Park.

We spent a week in New York City in mid-August – our first visit in a decade. I had forgotten a lot about the character of this city, but it all started coming back to me as we drove into Manhattan on a Friday evening and encountered people everywhere, out and about and doing all of the things that one does here. I have many images in my mind from the visit, but one is a sort of combination of massive, tall, and static structures surrounded by the constant motion of vehicles and people.

The next evening we made our way – with the help of our oldest son, who now lives there – down to the High Line Park area, arriving at the beginning of the “golden hour” light on an evening featuring wonderfully textured clouds. The Standard Hotel straddles the High Line – which, for those who may not know, is a narrow elevated park built on the structure of an old elevated railway. Here the cloud-filled sky is reflected in the windows of the hotel.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: People, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Backpackers Near Milestone Basin

August 21, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Two backpackers descend through sub-alpine meadows toward the peaks of the Great Western Divide near Milestsone Basin, Sequoia National Park.

My two friends, Caroline and Owen, head through a lovely sub-alpine meadow toward the peaks of the Great Western Divide and the upper Kern River drainage of the Sierra Nevada in early August. (When doing backpacking photography it is always good to be accompanied by friends with colorful gear! My clothing color scheme is not conducive to photography, consisting mostly of colors that match the rocks, grasses, and dirt…)

This is a spectacular and less-visited area of the Sierra, being very high and at least two days from any trailhead – and those trailheads lead over very high Sierra crest passes. We hit it at perhaps the peak of its seasonal beauty – despite the clouds of mosquitoes, everything was tremendously green. Even in the late morning hour – not typically the time for photography – the scene was quite something. Our trail here passed through a succession of small, intimate meadows surrounded by rolling hills and filled with scattered glacial rocks, occasionally passing by small lakes and tarns — perhaps my favorite kind of Sierra terrain!

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