Tag Archives: door

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

Three People, Gallery, Elevator Door

January 16, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Three people in an art gallery with a freight elevator door

I suppose that if you are camera-shy and you see me in a museum that you may want to run for cover. (Or just wait for me to become interested in the exhibits — I’m notorious for taking forever to work my way though museums. Family members have been known to just give up and go find a restaurant to wait for me to finally finish!) In any case, I like to photograph in museums, for the interesting architectural details and light and for the opportunity to watch people doing interesting things and assembling themselves into various compositions.

We were at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA) where we had seen a lot of very interesting stuff. (My favorite was the installation on the top floor by William Kentridge, “The Refusal of Time. I walked into it prepared to be unimpressed, but ended up being very moved by it.) Along the edge of a gallery on a lower floor there was a giant freight elevator door taking up almost all of one wall. One thing about museums is that almost anything seen in such a place has the potential to take on meanings beyond the ordinary, and for some reason this door caught my attention. I did as I often do with such subjects — I waited for people to populate this “intimate urban landscape” so that I could make a few photographs.

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Florence Building

January 2, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A gritty looking Florence building

It was almost the end of our five weeks of American, British, and European travel this past August — from New York City in late July to the UK at the start of August, and then through Paris, Heidelberg, and several areas in Italy. The trip was winding down. Truth be told, we were at the point where we would have been happy to continue traveling, but it was time to return to the US and get back to the so-called real world.

We went out for a morning walk in Florence, heading away from the busiest areas in the opposite direction from our hotel. We wandered up narrow streets to a large, open square, and then simply “random walked” our way back. For an American, particularly a west coast American perhaps, central Florence is a remarkably different looking place. This is not just because of the very old streets and buildings but secondarily because of the state of their exteriors. In many places things are very similar colors, in a range between brown and tan, and most buildings don’t look all that fancy from the outside. There is a striking lack of advertising signs — a shop might typically have one sign and it probably isn’t lit much if at all. This building had a practical look about it, with pipes, wires, and conduit on the outside. The light was remarkable — an unusual combination of brilliance combined with a certain softness that the Italian atmosphere provided almost the entire time we were there.

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

Photographs: France, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Boulangerie Coquelicot

November 21, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two people walk past the closed storefront of Boulanger Coquelicot at night, Paris

This will be a brief post today… I made this photograph last August on an evening in Montemartre when we went out to look for a place to grab dinner. We passed this bakery, a place that our son and daughter-in-law had told us they had visited when they were here a few months earlier, and I figured I should photograph it. The location was quite dark and I was shooting handheld, so the long exposure allowed the furtive, hurrying figures to blur a bit.

Photographs: Germany

Old Home

November 18, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The front of an old home in Neckarsteinach, Heidelberg, Germany area

I’ll keep the commentary brief on this one. We traveled by boat a short distance up the Neckar River from the Altstadt Heidelberg area last summer and stopped here to wander a bit and to eat. Our wandering took us up and down some narrow, twisty, hill streets and past some beautifully weathered homes.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: door

Three People, Gallery, Elevator Door

Florence Building

Boulangerie Coquelicot

Old Home

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.