Tag Archives: chinatown

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Fancy Wheat Field Bakery Inc

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Fancy Wheat Field Bakery Inc
A bakery delivery truck parked in San Francisco

Fancy Wheat Field Bakery Inc. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A bakery delivery truck parked in San Francisco

This photograph takes a step away from the recent images from the natural world of the Sierra Nevada. Hey, I don’t just photograph rocks, water, and trees! (Don’t worry — more Sierra photographs are on their way.) The location is on the loose boundary between North Beach and Chinatown in San Francisco, and at neighborhood intersections like this you can often see a wonderfully wild mixture of visual and other cues.

There is so much that caught my attention about this truck — a truck that you could easily just ignore. How about the name of the baking company? “Fancy Wheat Field Bakery.” Is the bakery fancy, or is it the wheat field? And the graphical elements on the side of the truck are exuberant — while colors, bold shapes, little negative space. And further signifying the cultural richness of this part of San Francisco, behind the truck we see a Chinese salon and “Capo’s” Italian Dinners.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

City Super

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City Super
Busy morning at “City Super” in San Francisco, with produce boxes lined up along the curb

City Super. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Busy morning at “City Super” in San Francisco, with produce boxes lined up along the curb

I’ll take a street photography break today, and step away from the Yosemite landscape photography that I’ve been posting almost non-stop. This is a photograph from what I think of as the real Chinatown in San Francisco — a few blocks over from tourist Chinatown, and an area filled with people and markets like this one.

I almost always arrive here on foot, most often after taking the train up the peninsula to the City and then striking out in whatever direction seems interesting, depending on the light and my mood. On this morning I wandered all the way into North Beach before looping back through the area in the photograph.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Psychic Welcomes You

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Psychic Welcomes You
A business doorway with many locks and a surprising message.

Psychic Welcomes You. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A business doorway with many locks and a surprising message.

Another photograph from the San Francisco streets today… Because I live only a one-hour train ride away from San Francisco, it is pretty easy for me to head up there, traveling light with a rangefinder-style camera and a lens or two, and head out on foot to photograph in the City. I did just that near the start of the month, perhaps partly to focus on a subject other than the natural world of Yosemite for a bit!

A little scene like this one can be a simple photograph of a door with an interesting sign, or it could lead you to other observations and questions if you let it. It is, obviously, another example of something I described in another recent street photography post, namely the interesting hand-made business sign that is the opposite of the mass-produced “perfect” signage that we often see. There’s something that is both a bit comic and a bit bizarre about the appearance of the sign and its “Psychic Welcomes You” message. Also, “Psychic” must be having a premonition about a robbery, given the number and variety of locks along the left side of the door! Or perhaps a premonition isn’t necessary — note the previously broken door frame. That, of course, produces another question: What would be so attractive about a psychic that he/she would be the repeated target of burglaries?

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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 | 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: Urban/Street

Palm And Tarot Reader

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Palm And Tarot Reader
The front window of a palm and tarot card reader business

Palm And Tarot Reader. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The front window of a palm and tarot card reader business

There are many aspects of the urban landscape that fascinate me. It is often far more colorful than the natural world, and there are frequently interesting geometries and compositional potentials. Objects become more interesting as they exhibit weathering and wear, yet they are frequently found juxtaposed with perfectly constructed new objects. Text, in signs and elsewhere, plays a part — ranging from its own geometry and form to possibly ironic combinations. And, of course, the people are subjects and they constantly change. And odd, attractive little oddities abound — as in this little scene.

I didn’t think too much about it as I made the photograph — I tend to work rather intuitively — but looking at it now I’m sure that several things caught my attention. The juxtaposition of spiritual and occult imagery and text was at the top of the list, especially combined with the banality of the location. The patterns of color also interest me, from yellow at the left, through the reds of the window edge and neon sign, to the blue shadow light at the far right. There are also small elements that you might miss, like all of the locks on the door at the edge of the frame. And that doesn’t remotely exhaust the list of things that you could see here…

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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 | LinkedIn | Email

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