Tag Archives: door

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Man in Subway Car

February 1, 2016 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A man stands near the doorway between two cars of a historic New York subway car

This is another of my historic subway photographs from late December 2015 in New York City. During the holiday season, on one day the system trots out the old rolling stock and folks can ride the old trains over a section of the modern subway system under Manhattan. We got there early and caught the first run of the train heading uptown, then caught it again for the trip back.

The experience is remarkable. Some of these subway cars are very old, and while they still look like subway cars there are aspects of the experience that are quite different. They are very noisy! Sometimes the lights switch off for a moment, presumably as the train rolls over un-powered sections. The passageways between cars are entirely open — the ends of the cars bounce up and down relative to one another and the wind streams past. This photographs looks through that inter-car passage and toward the connected car, where a man stands in the aisle.

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

Accessible Entrance

January 4, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A metal door with an accessibility sign

OK, how to explain a photograph like this one? On the first full day of our recent visit to New York City we were out walking around in the Williamsburg vicinity in Brooklyn, and I was taking in the combination of very old stuff, very new stuff, and some very worn and dilapidated stuff. Even for a photographer used to photographing street subjects in San Francisco, many New York neighborhoods are, as they say, photographically “target rich environments,” with lots of things to see.

If I recall correctly, we had walked down a street toward the East River waterfront, passing though an area of older industrial buildings that seems to be converting to modern tech and commercial space. All I remember of the making of this photograph is that I made it more or less while passing by. I was attracted by the wild color and by the seemingly odd placement of the accessibility sign on what looked like a rather unfriendly entrance door.

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

Photographs: Night, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Yellow Wall, Warning Signs

November 16, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Night photograph of yellow building wall, doorway, windows, and warning signs, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard

This will be the first of a series of night photographs, made on a recent visit to the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard in Vallejo, California. I have been photographing at night here for more than a decade now. As I return I continue to find new things to photograph as the lighting is always different and the buildings themselves change. For example, on this visit I found that a dry dock area that has recently been used to dismantle old ships is lit in such a way as to light familiar buildings in new ways, and that some ship yard equipment that used to be behind security fences was now more accessible.

The architecture of this old building is found all over Mare Island and in other military and similar locations all over the country. (At a recent exhibit in San Francisco many viewers of one of my Mare Island photographs were almost certain that the photograph was from Hunters Point — and I can see why, as the same sort of architecture is found there.) Many buildings near this one appear to have been damaged in a north bay earthquake that happened not too long ago — a chunk of the building’s roof is damaged, some of the hanging conduit may have come down in the quake, and a corner of the next door brick building is gone.

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

Staggering Couple

October 4, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A couple staggers past a closed business along a San Francisco sidewalk.

To me, this photograph has a sort of strange and somewhat perverse quality — like a scene from some bizarre circus or suggesting a madhouse or a dream. It is, admittedly, something of a construction — a construction by means of limiting what is shown of the surroundings and by means of a shutter speed slow enough to blur details and create a fantastical quality. It didn’t hurt that the postures of the couple are somewhat awkward and strange.

As is so often the case for me when photographing in places like this, my attention first went to the architecture and the wild colors and patterns painted on the closed shutters of this shop. That would be somewhat interesting, but hard to make work as a photograph on its own, especially when shooting handheld. And then this couple appeared, walking (sort of) along the sidewalk, hanging onto each other. Set against this incongruous background, they become something quite different from what they actually were.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: door

Man in Subway Car

Accessible Entrance

Yellow Wall, Warning Signs

Staggering Couple

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