Tag Archives: center

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Tile and Concrete Wall

1 Comment
Tile and Concrete Wall
Tile and Concrete Wall

Tile and Concrete Wall. San Francisco, California. July 15, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A weathered tile and concrete wall at Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco.

I’ll throw things a bit off-kilter here and interrupt the stream of landscape images from the Sierra Nevada with a minimalist photograph of a tile wall that I made while walking around in San Francisco in July. This may not be quite as simple a photograph as it first appears, and in larger version or print it becomes more apparent that the tiles are varied and weathered in interesting ways that produce a range of textures and colors.

I do a certain number of “minimalist” photographs – some of the urban landscape and others of the natural landscape and seascapes. Sometimes when I’m photographing some of the urban subjects I get some very strange looks from passers-by! I guess it must be hard to imagine why some guy with a fancy camera is pointing it straight at a wall in downtown San Francisco when so many other seemingly more compelling subjects are all around. Or else they might wonder if there is something there that they just don’t see.

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.

G Dan Mitchell: Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Blue and Green Receptacles, Yerba Buena Gardens

2 Comments

Blue and Green Receptacles, Yerba Buena Gardens
Blue and Green Receptacles, Yerba Buena Gardens

Blue and Green Receptacles, Yerba Buena Gardens. San Francisco, California. July 15, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Blue and green waste receptacles next to a glass wall at Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco.

I’m tempted to not say much about this photograph, beyond the basics of where and when and what. The “where” is along the wall of the performing arts center at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center. The when is on a morning with high fog that produced some nice, diffused light. The “what” is, well, a couple of trash cans in front of a large window, behind which there are a couple of other trash cans in the same color scheme, a drinking fountain, and some yellow walls. Profound, no? :-)

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

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

Ferry Building and Embarcadero Center Building

1 Comment

Ferry Building and Embarcadero Center Building
Ferry Building and Embarcadero Center Building

Ferry Building and Embarcadero Center Building. San Francisco, California. July 12, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Embarcadero Center and Ferry Building near the San Francisco waterfront on a foggy morning.

This is another photograph that I’ve been sitting on for a while – first while it languished as a raw file between last July and early this year when I did my annual review of the previous year’s images, and then after post-processing as I posted photographs from Death Valley, the Sierra, and the coast. It has been sitting on my desktop long enough.

The photograph was made from the dock side of the San Francisco Ferry Building, looking back over the building past its iconic tower towards some of the modern buildings in the Financial District. The light was very interesting – there was still, obviously, the usual summer morning overcast where I was. However, behind me and out over the Bay the clouds were breaking up and the light was starting to come in at a low angle from off the bay, providing a glow to features like the windows of the tall background building.

This photo was made while walking streets in San Francisco and shooting mostly “old school” with just a 50mm prime.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter (follow me) | Facebook (“Like” my page) | 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.

Commentary, Ideas

A Difficult Question, and Thinking About Feedback

7 Comments

There is a lot to say about the subject of feedback – what constitutes useful feedback, when it is and is not appropriate to offer it, when to be “direct” and when to be diplomatic, how to offer it, and so forth. I’m thinking about this today – though I think about it often – after a thought-provoking experience I had yesterday.

Yesterday I visited Charles Cramer’s beautiful solo show at the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel – for the third time! I made a point of dropping in one more time because a) this was the final day of the show, b) I’m a huge fan of Charlie’s work, c) I knew that he would be there in the afternoon, and d) it gave me a perfect excuse to photograph on the Monterey Peninsula yesterday before and after visiting the show!

Charlie asked several of us two questions – one merely difficult and the other very difficult. The former, merely difficult question was, more or less, “Which are your favorites?” This wasn’t too difficult, since there are some very specific photographs in this show that “speak” to me very powerfully. In fact, I basically responded to this question by pointing those out and trying (with varying levels of success) to say something about what makes those photographs “work” for me. But there are so many that work in so many different ways that I could really do the question justice. Some work “as photographs” alone, there are others that I probably see differently because of my affinity for the subjects, some require some time to understand, and so forth.

But the second question was the really tough one: “Which photograph(s) would you leave out of the exhibit?” Really? You are asking me, Charlie? :-)

But then I thought about this a bit more and decided to attempt an answer. I’m not going to write about which photographs I would leave out – frankly I would add more of his photographs rather than removing any – since my selections are not the point. But I do want to think out loud a bit more about the question and the value of asking it and trying to answer. Continue reading A Difficult Question, and Thinking About Feedback →