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#932 Sale

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#932 Sale
A shop with nighttime visitors, San Francisco

#932 Sale. San Francisco, California. July 25, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A shop with nighttime visitors, San Francisco

This is another in my series of night street photographs. This photograph comes from an evening in more or less the Chinatown area of San Francisco. This work is a sort of counterpoint to my landscape and nature photography. Although the two seem quite different, I think that each type of photography makes me better at the other. This work happens very quickly, usually without a whole lot of time to contemplate — so it exercises the fast and intuitive part of my seeing.

The photographs tend to occur in two ways. In some cases I simply see something happening and I have to photograph it immediately without a lot of time for conscious thought — if I wait the opportunity will be gone. Another sort of work has a stronger connection to landscape, and I think of these photographs as being a sort of urban landscape. As was the case with this photograph, I find a particular subject or composition and then I watch for figures to occupy the space in interesting ways. The interest can come from their relative positions, their posture and the direction they look, how they fit into the available lighting, and the color of their attire. And, as I have pointed out previously, this nighttime handheld street photography is something that only became reasonably possible very recently, with the development of small cameras that will work at very high ISO settings.

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: Night, Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Urban/Street

Funeral No Parking

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Funeral No Parking
Street signs stored next to a funeral parlor doorway, New York City

Funeral No Parking. New York City. December 24. 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Street signs stored next to a funeral parlor doorway, New York City

I can state with certainty that this is the only time I have made night photographs of funeral homes in Manhattan on Christmas Eve. Go ahead! Prove me wrong! ;-)

So, how did this happen? As many street/urban photographs happen. I have a camera with me wherever I go, day and night, in places like this, and when I see something that catches my eye I make a photograph. We had started the evening by briefly joining the throng up on 5th Avenue where there are tons of holiday lights and displays. After leaving that madhouse we headed down toward Chinatown to find a place where we have had dinner a few times before — but we arrived to find that it had apparently become very popular since our last visit. We were told that the wait might be two hours. So we set out to find something less crowded nearly. We eventually found a nice quite Vietnamese restaurant but first we passed this side street with the doors and glowing windows of this funeral parlor.

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: New York City, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Man in White, Mosco Street

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Man in White, Mosco Street
A man dressed in white takes a break outside of a Mosco Street kitchen, New York

Man in White, Mosco Street. December 24, 2015. New York, New York. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A man dressed in white takes a break outside of a Mosco Street kitchen, New York

Christmas Eve in New York City.Earlier in the day we had wandered around in midtown, making photographs in cloudy and occasionally drizzly conditions. Eventually we made it up to near Central Park to join our younger son and his future wife at a place where he proposed to her earlier this year. Then we wandered down along the park and across to join the mob scene on Fifth Avenue until the crowds become overwhelming.

Time for dinner, so we head to Chinatown, where there is a restaurant at which we’ve eaten with our sons on a few previous Christmas visits. It is supposed to be — and it was — a place that is good but not necessarily widely known. We arrive and find that the wait is “at least an hour and a half.” As someone later said, “The cat is out of the bag.” We quickly figure out that most of the other nearby restaurants are nearly as crowded, so we decide to walk a few blocks to a Vietnamese place. As we walk down Mosco Street a cook takes a break on the sidewalk, lit by the light spilling out of the door to the kitchen.

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

Chinatown Street Scene

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Chinatown Street Scene
Tourists on the sidewalk in front of a brightly lit souvenir shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown district

Chinatown Street Scene. San Francisco, California. September 5, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tourists on the sidewalk in front of a brightly lit souvenir shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown district

Another evening in San Francisco, another photograph of people walking along the sidewalk in front of a Chinatown shop. These are becoming something of a theme, or so it seems. I’m not exactly certain where I made this one, but I feel like it might not have been along the main tourist area of Grant Street — but I’m prepared to be wrong.

My approach is to look for good light first and to then find a composition and people to fill it. Some interesting elements, like the stairway at the right, are nice, too. I’m always looking for spots where light spills onto the sidewalk, offering the potential to illuminate passers-by when they enter the scene. It is even better if street lights or the lights of another shop provide just a bit of front light to fill in the shadows. Aside from the way that all of the people managed to position themselves across the frame, I think I owe the woman to choose to wear the red dress on this evening.

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.