Tag Archives: chinatown

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Night, Photographs: People, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Man With Flag

Leave a comment
Man With Flag
A man with a flag organizes a group of tourists on a San Francisco street

Man With Flag. San Francisco, California. July 25, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A man with a flag organizes a group of tourists on a San Francisco street

I think this is another “there’s more going on here than you might first realize” photographs. Yes, there is a man marching out of this store carrying a small flag, but why? The answer to that question is pretty easy — he is apparently leading a group of tourists through this part of San Francisco, and the flag is his way of letting them know who to follow. (You’ll see this phenomenon in almost any city or other area that is popular with tourists.) But there is something else interesting — at last to me — about this photograph. Many of the people in the scene have apparently just become aware of me and are looking my direction, apparently not quite certain how to respond just yet. (I’m discreet, so I probably didn’t have the camera to my face, and it isn’t a large camera.)

Pools of light like this one are prime spots for me when shooting urban areas at night. I love the way the light spills out onto the sidewalk, creating shadows leading away from the people. I can also play with this light. I might shoot straight into it and make shadow the main subject. Or I can sometimes get just a bit between the subjects and the light, and then it can light them quite beautifully, especially when there are multiple light sources. If I recall correctly, it was the light and then the bricks that first caught my eyes here, and then when the people appeared in the doorway the photograph was complete.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

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

San Francisco Street Scene

Leave a comment
San Francisco Street Scene
Walls, doors, gates, conduits, signs, trash containers, peeling paint, reflections along a San Francisco street

San Francisco Street Scene. San Francisco, California. May 29, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Walls, doors, gates, conduits, signs, trash containers, peeling paint, reflections along a San Francisco street

I’m indulging my fascination with street scenes once again today. This photograph comes from a morning spent walking across San Francisco late last week. I arrived early in the City by train, got off, and walked by an unplanned and mostly spontaneous route across downtown, across Chinatown, through North Beach, and almost to the touristy Pier 39 before looping back to my starting point on The Embarcadero to catch a train back home.

This is a familiar sort of San Francisco scene, especially to those who wander though the City of foot, though I could find similar spots in many other urban areas. In a world where we often see things that have been carefully designed and unified, spots like this seem to occupy the opposite end of the spectrum. It would be easy to walk past and not see it — I’ve certainly done so many times — but once I stop and look I’m often amazed at the density of visually dissonant elements that are thrown together. Almost everything seem like it was initially utilitarian, but gradually a sort of near randomness seems to have crept in, and now the colors are wild and contrasting, paint is peeling, textures are varied, a few signs intrude, trash cans lean against doorways, and the sidewalk tilts.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Wall, Man Walking

Leave a comment
Wall, Man Walking
Wall, Man Walking

Wall, Man Walking. New York City. August 10, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A man walks on a painted sidewalk in Manhattan, New York City

I made this little “grab shot” along a narrow and curving street in New York City’s Chinatown district, probably as we were waiting for others to arrive for dinner at a neighborhood restaurant. Given the way my photographic eye works, I first noticed the pattern from the metal door and brick walls, with lines converging as the sidewalk traveled further down the street. I picked this spot because of some of the things that interrupted that pattern — the spilled paint on the sidewalk, the doors, and the utility pole.

Then I waited and watched. In almost all cases it will be little more than a moment or two before someone interesting wanders into this urban landscape and humanizes it in one way or another. I got lucky here, as this fellows attire fit with the colors of the existing scene, and I was able to photograph him just as he passed and walked across the paint-spill section of the sidewalk, with his face invisible to the camera.

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: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

N.Y. Chung Chou City, LLC

Leave a comment
N.Y. Chung Chou City, LLC
Bright lights of a Manhattan Chinatown shop on a summer evening

N.Y. Chung Chou City, LLC. New York City. August 10, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Bright lights of a Manhattan Chinatown shop on a summer evening

After dinner in New York’s Chinatown district, we went out to walk a very roundabout route to the subway. This was approaching my new favorite time for doing street photography — at night! With the newest cameras (I’m using a Fujifilm X-trans mirrorless for city shooting) the high ISO performance is good enough that I can crank it up, put on a f/1.4 lens, and shoot handheld in the urban night, working with only the ambient lighting. It wasn’t quite that dark here, but you can see that it was dark enough that the lighted interior of the shop was brighter than outside.

These scenes seem, to this west coaster, part of the culture and aura of New York City. There is a lot more going on here than might meet the eye, and I won’t even try to explain all of it. The ubiquitous plastic trash bags are an obvious feature. In my native part of the world, most neighborhoods appear to be places where trash doesn’t exist, but in New York everyone seems to just accept it as a part of the urban world. There is the odd matter of the cooler in front of the store entrance, which rests of a shelf and spews a stream of water onto the sidewalk. Between the light and the green awnings, the colors are fairly bright. And, at this early hour of the evening, a pool of light from the shop spills out onto the sidewalk.

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.