“At the Manneken PIs” — Tourists taking pictures at the Manneken Pis in Brussels, Belgium.
Some “tourist attractions” are darned near inexplicable. Manneken Pis is one of them. Located at a nondescript corner in a relatively nondescript area of Brussels, it is a fountain with a tiny (61cm tall) statue of a small boy urinating. Indeed, the idea that such a thing exists is mildly interesting. But the actual site is a pretty big nothingburger in my ever-humble opinion.
So, you might wonder, where is the fountain in this photograph referring to it? It is out of the frame to the right. I was completely uninterested in photographing the peeing kid myself. However, the people who came to look and photograph themselves in front of it were fascinating. Some stood back and shot images of it — and I’m trying to imagine them getting back home and wondering why they did. Others lined themselves up to take selfies with the urinating youngster in the background, thus managing, I suppose, to prove that they were actually there. Standing next to a 61cm statue. Of a pissing boy. Or something. ;-)
Leave a comment or question using the form. (If you are reading this on the home page, click the article title to see the full article and the comment form.
A boy and two girls seated on benches at the Louvre, Paris.
Among the members of my family, I have a problematic reputation as a museum visitor. Apparently I spend way too much time in such places and traverse them way too slowly. A ritual has developed where eventually everyone else heads off to somewhere fun, leaving me behind to wander and. ponder, and later I catch up and join the party. What can I say? I like museums.
Not only do I like them for the things they present, but I also like to photograph in and around them. The buildings usually have fascinating design and architecture and often also very interesting light. There are lots of people, individually or in groups, who populate these interesting spaces. Here I photographed outside the Louvre, in the immense central courtyard, making a photograph of two girls in enthusiastic conversation and one very small-looking boy sitting alone against the monumental scale of the building.
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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
A man with a flag organizes a group of tourists on a San Francisco street
I think this is another “there’s more going on here than you might first realize” photographs. Yes, there is a man marching out of this store carrying a small flag, but why? The answer to that question is pretty easy — he is apparently leading a group of tourists through this part of San Francisco, and the flag is his way of letting them know who to follow. (You’ll see this phenomenon in almost any city or other area that is popular with tourists.) But there is something else interesting — at last to me — about this photograph. Many of the people in the scene have apparently just become aware of me and are looking my direction, apparently not quite certain how to respond just yet. (I’m discreet, so I probably didn’t have the camera to my face, and it isn’t a large camera.)
Pools of light like this one are prime spots for me when shooting urban areas at night. I love the way the light spills out onto the sidewalk, creating shadows leading away from the people. I can also play with this light. I might shoot straight into it and make shadow the main subject. Or I can sometimes get just a bit between the subjects and the light, and then it can light them quite beautifully, especially when there are multiple light sources. If I recall correctly, it was the light and then the bricks that first caught my eyes here, and then when the people appeared in the doorway the photograph was complete.
A child playing with a toy car on the sidewalk of a busy Manhattan street
I made this photograph on my first real day of shooting in Manhattan. We had arrived the night before, late enough that we only had time to take a cab to where we were staying, have a bite to eat (thanks, Timothy and Margaret!), and fall asleep. The next morning we went over to NYU, where Patty was participating in a music conference for the next five days, and after she got registered I was on my own in Manhattan, and on the prowl with a camera for a good part of the next few days. I often started out with very general plans, but then mostly sort of followed my intuitions as I wandered up and down the island. On this first morning I simply headed uptown toward Grand Central Station with my camera at my side, and began to get in the flow of photographing this busy, dense, and compelling place.
When shooting street I often think a bit like the landscape photographer than I am. This means that I find what I think is a visually interesting place, consider how to compose a shot, and then wait until something or someone interesting enters the frame. However, this shot worked more or less the opposite way. I saw this child, incongruously pushing his combination play car and stroller on a section of this very busy urban sidewalk. Fearing that it might be more than a little creepy to walk up and point my camera at this interesting child, I moved closer to the building wall so that I could instead include him near the edge of a shot of the overall street scene. Placing him so close to the lower left corner obviously made for an unusual composition, though I think it is somehow interesting to see him in a position that seems so peripheral to the rest of the scene. I watched to see if he would do anything interesting, and I made the exposure when he leaned over and looked in my direction. Initially I thought that the photograph might be in color, and as I worked with it the bright colors of taxis seemed to complement the cooler tones of the shaded sidewalk area. But there were problems — that interesting yellow also distracted from the child, and his little “car” was a dark shade of blue. In the end, I had a lot more control over the relative tonality of different parts of the scene with this black and white conversion.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
Manage Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
