“Spanish Caravan, Liverpool” — A beer ad on a wall in the Liverpool Ropewalks district.
This scene was on a corner near the place we stayed in the Ropewalks district of Liverpool this spring. We had gone out for a long walk and run into a bit of rain, perhaps obvious from the wet street and sidewalk. I think that the large figure on the wall is meant to look like a guy who is happy with his beer. But I think there is also something just a bit ominous about that unnatural grin on a figure towering above the street and peeking out between buildings.
“Ways” — A graffiti-filled side alley in Glasgow, Scotland.
We visited a number of Scottish towns and cities, ranging from small villages where we were lodged during our Great Glen Way trek up to the urban centers of Edinburgh and Glasgow. We were actually in Glasgow twice. Our (long!) flight from the West Coast of the USA (in two segments) terminated in Glasgow, so we had made arrangements to walk the short distance from the terminal to the closest hotel and fall asleep. The next morning we took a shuttle into Glasgow to catch a trail to Oban, and while waiting we walked just a bit around downtown. But it wasn’t until we returned a couple of weeks later that we had a chance to explore this city.
We liked Glasgow even more than we expected to. We had read various things about the city — some suggested that it was more mundane than its bigger neighbor Edinburgh, but others touted its charm, quirkiness, “workaday” quality, and street art. In the end, we ended up agreeing with the latter reaction. There’s plenty to see and do there, but it doesn’t have the same tourist pressure that we saw in Edinburgh. I made this photograph near the end of a very long walk we took one day. Perhaps it doesn’t quite illustrate the point I’m trying to make about the town, but it was a fascinating little alley off of one of the main thoroughfares.
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 large mural featuring two faces, above a Manhattan parking lot.
One of the things I like to do while making street photograph is look for odd, unusual juxtapositions. There are plenty of these in virtually any big city environment, since these places usually bring together a wide variety of people, activities, structures, and more. Street art and murals add another image element to the mix. There are some oddly disparate elements here: the two large figures, cars on lifts, and a couple of people at the lower left.
The mural on this building’s wall features two figures overlooking the street in a somewhat ominous manner. I don’t know the identity of the one on the right but the one on the left appears to be from Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” — which injects an interesting flavor into this street scene. There are other elements here that I find fascinating. I’ll leave most of them to viewers to discover, but that double vertical “dashed line” of windows is intriguing.
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.
Multiple layers of reflections produce a complex whole.
The urban landscape can be quite complex and even deceptive. I think that we imagine it to be the most rational of landscapes, where everything is objectively “real” and describable. But when you begin to look more closely, if frequently isn’t quite what it seems to be. The surfaces of things are often elusive, and you may find yourself looking more at the reflections of other things than at the object you think you are viewing.
It is somewhat difficult to make sense of this image at all once you start looking closely. There are, obviously, things from the street — parts of automobiles, a bit of a crosswalk. But nothing in this scene is viewed directly — everything is a reflect, or a reflection of a reflection, or a reflection viewed through another reflection.
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.
