Tag Archives: blue

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Accessible Entrance

January 4, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A metal door with an accessibility sign

OK, how to explain a photograph like this one? On the first full day of our recent visit to New York City we were out walking around in the Williamsburg vicinity in Brooklyn, and I was taking in the combination of very old stuff, very new stuff, and some very worn and dilapidated stuff. Even for a photographer used to photographing street subjects in San Francisco, many New York neighborhoods are, as they say, photographically “target rich environments,” with lots of things to see.

If I recall correctly, we had walked down a street toward the East River waterfront, passing though an area of older industrial buildings that seems to be converting to modern tech and commercial space. All I remember of the making of this photograph is that I made it more or less while passing by. I was attracted by the wild color and by the seemingly odd placement of the accessibility sign on what looked like a rather unfriendly entrance door.

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

Green and Blue Wall

January 1, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Graffiti and poster remnants on a green and blue Brooklyn brick wall.

We arrived in New York late the day before, in time to check in to lodgings and meet our “kids” (two sons and their fiances) for dinner, but there wasn’t a lot of time to get around and see and photograph. The next morning we met up with our youngest son in the more or less the Williamsburg area, and we wandered about, hitting the waterfront of the East River and then finding lunch.

During any bit of urban wandering I’m almost always on the lookout for photographs. Photographing on the street is an exercise in working quickly and being versatile. In most cases I don’t have a specific subject in mind — the closest to that may be a general idea of looking a buildings or people or water or interiors or… In this case I was in an area with a lot of older construction, and we passed through a few spots that were obviously the hope to lots of posters and graffiti. Oddly, since people are sometimes trying to paint out the tagging, there can be many layers of often new paint, posters in various states of decay, and odds and ends of painted words and images. Here the remnants of a poster partially obscured a hand drawn heart on a wall that appeared to have been painted in two not quite identical shades of blue-green.

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Evening Trees

December 23, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening trees reflected in the surface of San Joaquin Valley wetlands

The primary attraction for me in these San Joaquin Valley wetlands is, or so I tell myself, the hordes of migratory birds that arrive here in the late fall and over-winter — geese, ibises, sandhill cranes, along with egrets and herons and more. They draw me to the Valley, just a couple of miles away from my home over the coast range, throughout the late fall through winter period. But once I get there I think I am as interested in the landscape as in the wildlife.

We had just about finished a full day of photographing (mostly) the migratory birds. Late in the day I always start to think about what my final subject will be, and then I try to extend my shooting time as late into the failing light as possible. I might continue to photograph birds in deep dusk, raising ISO and lowering shutter speed and working with the resulting motion blur. On this late-fall evening I went in a different direction, and I put the camera on the tripod and finished up with some blue-hour landscape photographs of the wetlands, the trees, and the evening clouds.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Exit, Yellow Doors, Blue Windows

November 20, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Exit sign above doors to outside area illuminated by dusk light

After meeting up with my fellow night photographers (associated with The Nocturnes, the long-standing San Francisco night photography community) to share photographs and pizza, we all got ready to head out into the night as darkness came on. After the social time I began to get myself into the rather different frame of mind necessary to photographing this subject. Before I even left the building I began to look around inside, and I decided to walk slowly into some corners of this facility that I had not looked at before. As I did I found myself in a bit of a dead-end spot where this door, lit by indoor artificial lighting, let to the developing twilight on the other side.

I associate a number of things with photographing at night. Of course, subjects often take on a very different appearance at night, and rather prosaic subjects can acquire a feeling of mystery. In practical terms, I’m absolutely fascinated by this world that is illuminated by lighting that is far more varied than what we typically see in daylight. Rather that more or less one kind of lighting, there could be many — the blues of twilight, the daylight-like color balance of moonlight, the wild colors of artificial light from tungsten, sodium vapor, fluorescent and other kinds of light. But beyond all of that, I associate the sense of profound stillness and quite with this kind of photography, where I frequently stand alone in dark and quiet places for many minutes as I wait for exposures to complete.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: blue

Accessible Entrance

Green and Blue Wall

Evening Trees

Exit, Yellow Doors, Blue Windows

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