Tag Archives: building

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Portal, Wall, and Cable

September 9, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Looking through a portal in a yellow wall towards a white wall beyond, lit by diffused light.

This is almost, but perhaps not quite, a “photograph of nothing.” As we walked through this New York City museum I was distracted by the way the light hit different surfaces, especially because the light was especially diffused on this cloudy morning – and I was intrigued by the juxtapositions of different colors and shapes and types of lighting that I could find as I moved through this space. This minimalist image consists of an open portal with what must be a safety cable along the bottom sill, with a large room with white walls beyond, and another similar portal and a corner breaking up the white walls near the left side of the image.

Ideally it would be best to shoot this from a tripod at low ISO and a long shutter speed and perhaps with a prime. However, here I had to improvise, shooting hand held at 1/20 second (yay for IS!) with a zoom lens that required some distortion correction in post.

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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: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Stonework Detail, Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine

August 28, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Detail of stonework at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, New York City.

Early in the morning we took the subway north to the area around Columbia University where we had been told to visit a Hungarian bakery. (Worth the visit, by the way…) This “cathedral church,” which I had heard of but not seen in person, is located almost across the street. We started in the nearby sculpture garden which features a large, central sculpture (too much to say about it to try to do it here) which is surrounded by small pieces created by schoolchildren. From here it was a very short walk to the cathedral itself.

The cathedral is a powerful piece of architecture, much larger and more imposing than many of the other famous religious sites that I’ve seen in New York. I first made a series of photographs of the interesting textures and forms of the exterior of the building, including this photograph, taking advantage of the soft light created by the cloudy conditions. Eventually we made our way inside. I took no photographs inside the cathedral, partly because there was a service going on and because I was quite affected by the scale of the interior space… and by the very interesting and unusual music being performed by the organist.

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: 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…

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.

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