Tag Archives: china

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

Corner Store With Boarded-Up Windows

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Corner Store With Boarded-Up Windows
Corner Store With Boarded-Up Windows

Corner Store With Boarded-Up Windows. San Francisco, California. July 12, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A corner store with boarded-up windows in the Chinatown district of San Francisco.

There probably isn’t a whole lot to say about the subject of this photograph other than it is a boarded-up corner store in the Chinatown area of San Francisco, photographed in morning light last July. The components of the scene are kind of odd, I think: a bit of a flag, green awnings and painted wall, the slanting sidewalk with some poles and boxes, and the layers of older and newer boards and graffiti over the windows. I also though the light was interesting, partly because it was short period when the San Francisco fog is breaking up and the light is brighter but still soft, and partly because of the diagonal shadows cast across the vertical and horizontal shapes of the wall.

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

Laundry, Fire Escape, Chinatown

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Laundry, Fire Escape, Chinatown
Laundry, Fire Escape, Chinatown

Laundry, Fire Escape, Chinatown. San Francisco, California. July 12, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Laundry is hung to dry on fire escape above the streets of Chinatown, San Francisco.

This is a photography from one of my early morning photo-walks in San Francisco last summer. I take the train to the City very early in the morning and then walk. A lot. On this morning I passed through Chinatown on my way to the North Beach area fairly early in the morning – well before the tourist crowds showed up. A few blocks from the main tourist area it is a different world with markets opening up, deliveries being made, and busy people everywhere. I was working in more or less traditional street photographer style – to the extent that someone armed with a DSLR can do that ! – and shooting with just a 50mm prime lens on the camera and trying to work quickly as images presented themselves.

I imagine that many people who pass through here may easily be so focused on the activity at the street level that they might not look up. It often strikes me as surprising that in areas where so much is going on at street level – many people, colorful shop fronts, lots of action – the fronts of buildings right above present a completely different appearance. The first thing that caught my attention here was the laundry festooning the fire escape landings. But I also like the geometry of dark landings, ladders, and pipes against the lighter stucco wall, and the wonderful light coming through the morning haze from upper right and casting the lined shadows across the walls of the building.

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.