Tag Archives: cars

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

11th Avenue

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11th Avenue
Looking down 11th Avenue from the High Line Park

11th Avenue. New York City. December 28, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Looking down 11th Avenue from the High Line Park

Expect a wide-ranging mix of photographic subjects over the next few weeks. There will certainly be more from the San Joaquin Valley, both landscapes and wildlife. I still have some older photographs from the Sierra and other locations in the queue. This photograph is part of an inevitable series of “urban landscapes” and urban/street photography from our recent visit to New York City. The latter is a favorite subject of mine. As a west-coaster, I only get to photographer there perhaps once per year, but when I do I like to take full advantage of the opportunity.

This photograph feels like an urban landscape to me. On the final day of our trip we found time to revisit the High Line Park, a place that has a different feeling at each time of year. The park, for those who may not already know, runs along the path of an old elevated railroad bed on the west side of Manhattan. It has become an incredibly popular place, but with good reason, as it winds through all sorts of interesting urban terrain a few stories above street level. A new section has opened since our last visit, and it extends the path northward to and past the Hudson Yards area. This photograph was made along the new section where it crosses 11th Avenue, and where I saw the same beautiful light that might stop me in my tracks anywhere.

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 and Amazon.
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Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Man With Bag

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Man With Bag
Man With Bag

Man With Bag. New York City. August 7, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A man carrying a bag hurries across a Manhattan street

This photograph happened so fast that I can’t even recall exactly where I was, though I suspect I was somewhere a few blocks below the southeast corner of Central Park, where I was headed with a plan of walking around the entire park and photographing what I saw.

One thing I’ll say about busy urban environments such as that in Manhattan — there is bound to be something or someone interesting in front of your camera very quickly. Once you begin to be able to sort out the subjects from the visual background noise, they can start to appear so rapidly at times that there is barely time to photograph them. Many of them suddenly appear and it is a matter of shoot now or lose it. (That happens occasionally in my more typical sorts of photography, but it is rarely so continuous as it is here.) I’m betting that I might have seen this intense-looking fellow before he started to cross the street, and I believe he was in such a hurry that he moved back behind the cars stuck in traffic to cross between them. Aside from photographing him, we had no interaction and he was gone as quickly as he appeared.

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.
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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: Germany, Photographs: People, Photographs: Urban/Street

Reading on the Steps

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Reading on the Steps
Reading on the Steps

Reading on the Steps. Heidelberg, Germany. July 11, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A student studies a book on steps at the Physikalisches Institut of Heidelberg University, Germany

On our several walks to and along the Heidelberg Philosophen Weg, we passed by this university building, so I finally stopped for a moment and made a few photographs. The main building looks like an academic structure of some sort, so I had made a guess as to what this place was before I found the sign. One student reads on the steps, and a few of the ubiquitous bicycles are parked nearby. Also ubiquitous is the bit of political graffiti – found in many places near the University buildings, and often relatively small compared to the stuff we frequently see here in the US.

Yes, in a general sense, another postcard photograph. :-)

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

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: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Urban/Street

Buttnick Mfg. Co.

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Buttnick Mfg. Co.
Buttnick Mfg. Co.

Buttnick Mfg. Co. Seattle, Washington. August 14, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A person wearing a backpack walks in front of the Buttnick Mfg. Co. building in Seattle, Washington

OK, I admit that this isn’t perhaps an easy photograph to warm up to and, yes, the guy is way out of focus. As often happens when wandering the streets of some city – or, frankly, with other kinds of photography, too – one thing caught my attention and once I looked I saw other things… and then there was an unexpected accident. Despite rumors to the contrary, sometimes photography works that way. (To reassure some of you, photographs also work the opposite way sometimes – carefully thought out and made in a state of prolonged contemplation.)

As we walked past this corner, for some reason the name “Buttnick Mfg. Co.” caught my attention all by itself. This, and the visual appearance of the sign got me thinking about how the presentation and appearance of commercial entities has changed. Today, if “Buttnick Mfg. Co.” was starting up in this part of Seattle or almost any other relatively large city, there would be plastic signs, a carefully contrived sign designed to present and foster a particular way of viewing the firm, electronic lights, and probably a motto along the lines of, “Innovative Design and Manufacturing for Today’s Buttnick Buyer.” But this sign was probably painted by some local sign-painter and it offers nothing more than the name of the company, which is probably the name of the founder and perhaps someone who actually worked there. But, urban development being what it is, it looks to me like Buttnick is probably no longer to be found, and instead we see a group of smaller shops inside the building. (There now are electronic signs in the window and there is a SALE going on.) About that person in the photograph… while I was planning to include the people on the far side of the street as they walked in front of the building, the out-of-focus, photobombing, Seattle street person was entirely accidental – but somehow appropriate.

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

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.