Tag Archives: building

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Towers and Sky

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Towers and Sky
“Towers and Sky” — Two downtown San Francisco buildings and a patch of clear sky.

Whether or not it is apparent, this photograph is the result of some simple shooting and some significant post-processing work. The shot was made handheld during an early evening walk through a portion of San Francisco’s financial district. In addition to looking for the usual street stuff, I was giving my attention to what was above me. I made a series of photographs of very tall buildings, shooting almost straight up and from very close to the bases of the buildings. In “street” style, I was working with a 50mm prime and framing subjects within the constraints of that lens. (Since the subject comes up in this context from time to time… no, I’m not making any statement about the “right” lens to use for street. Sometimes I just like to work with a prime. Sometimes I like to work with a zoom. Sometimes I like both!)

When photographing these subjects in this way, the vertical shooting angle and closeness to the buildings can eliminate the reflections of other buildings and let each structure be seen apart from its surroundings to some extent. In this photograph, the windows (almost) do not reflect anything but sky. In order to emphasize the presence of those windows I chose to apply a blue (!) filter in post, which also had the effect of making the sky almost perfectly white, especially after some curves adjustments. I applied a few other processes as well to get the look I was after here – but those can be my secret!

For probably 90% or more of my photography, I’m pretty much a tripod kind of guy. Working without the tripod, walking through urban areas, and responding somewhat quickly (as least compared to some of my landscape work) to subjects, and then moving on – all of this can be a welcome change from my more typical shooting style.

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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. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Urban Canyons, Evening

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Urban Canyons, Evening - An urban landscape photograph in evening light, downtown San Francisco.
An urban landscape photographed in evening light, downtown San Francisco.

Urban Canyons, Evening. San Francisco, California. July 9, 2012. @ Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An urban landscape photographed in evening light, downtown San Francisco.

I spent a couple of days in downtown San Francisco earlier this month, with opportunities to photograph early and late in the day. Late in the afternoon I headed out and down Market street, starting out in less that amazing light but anticipating that things would certainly become more interesting as the evening wore on. On this particular walk I mostly headed to places that I already knew from many previous visits. I have often looked at this building and thought that it held to potential for a photograph that wasn’t just a “shot of the building,” but so far I had not actually come up with on. As I walked along the east side of the structure I saw that the very bright early evening sun was streaming across and between other tall buildings to the west and then past and through the columns in the left side of the frame. I positioned myself so that one of the columns just blocked the direct sun to make this photograph.

While I am perhaps mainly oriented to landscapes, both small and large, in my photography, I really enjoy shooting urban subjects as well. In some ways the experiences are very different – obviously the hustle and bustle of a major metropolitan downtown area feels a lot different from the quiet and solitude of the mountains, desert, or shoreline. But I respond to many of the same things in both places – juxtapositions of shapes, textures, and most important, the light. In the latter context, this photograph is not all that different from, say, one that features light flowing over the peaks of a Sierra ridge and down a canyon to pass between the trunks of trees. It is, after all, the same light.

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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Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Reflective Building

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Reflective Building
“Reflective Building” — Reflections in the windows of a downtown tower, San Francisco

I photographed the exterior of this building while walking in the financial district of San Francisco in the early evening. I was mainly shooting street subjects with a 50mm prime, but fortunately I had a telephoto zoom in my bag that I could use to isolate this section of the building from its surrounding context. In addition, I decided to take some liberties with the image in post, including some serious perspective adjustments that brought the vertical lines into nearly parallel alignment.

When walking around in an urban environment like this one, it is easy to focus on the grit and “reality” and noise and all the rest. But if you look past that you can find some astonishing images in this environment, some of which are quite abstract and perhaps border on hallucinations. This is a building – that is fairly obvious. But what in this photograph is actually the building? Not much. The thin, darker vertical lines are the frames around the window glass, as are the even thinner diagonal lines running upward from left to right. If you look closely you can see a few bits and pieces of what is inside the building, mostly in the form of interior lighting. But the main portion of the image is not really the building at all, instead consisting of warped and distorted forms that are the reflections of its surroundings, reflected in its glass surface.

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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. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Embarcadero Center Tower

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Embarcadero Plaza Tower
“Embarcadero Plaza Tower” — Black and white rendition of Embarcadero Plaza Tower, San Francisco.

This may be a bit of a rude shock after all of the recent nature images, but here we go. I made this photograph in early July while spending a couple days in San Francisco. On the first afternoon I went out armed primarily with a, uh, 50mm prime, and I found myself interested in photographing the tall downtown buildings from very close up and with somewhat steep upward angles so that I could accentuate the converging perspective lines. (Some of the others in this series will be significantly abstract interpretations of these subjects.)

I made this while walking through”the row of Embarcadero Center buildings. It was quite close to sunset, so the shadows were beginning to fill a bit more with light than they would during the middle of the day, when the light and shadows are more harsh. However, since I was shooting in shadows and low light, I ended up hand holding the camera at a fairly low shutter speed since I need a relatively small aperture for depth of field, especially since I decided to let the two overhead support beams intrude into the space of the taller building. This image was also the result of some significant work in the post-processing stage, including the application of a blue filter layer (to get the sky to blow out to white) and a blurred overlay layer.

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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. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.