Tag Archives: doors

Photographs: Europe, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Spain, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Accept Or Join The Fight

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Accept Or Join
A wall with graffiti and politcal slogans at night in San Sebastian, Spain

Accept Or Join The Fight. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

A wall with graffiti and politcal slogans at night in San Sebastian, Spain

This photograph is from Donostia San Sebastián, Spain — made during a nighttime walk through a lively district of popular bars, pintxos places, and more. (We are now great fans of the pintxos scene.) Having said that, this particular spot obviously wasn’t the most lively, being in a small square mostly lacking such businesses, but having plenty of interesting forms, lighting, colors and textures.

Back home I often avoid including graffiti in my urban photographs, but here it was hard to avoid and it seemed like an aspect of the place. I think that it was the light, colors, and forms that initially caught my attention, and it wasn’t until we got home and I began to work on these photographs that I looked up a translation of the Basque language slogan on the left door: “Accept what is there or join the fight.”

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Storefront, Two Men

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Storefront, Two Men
“Storefront, Two Men” — Two men at a Manhattan storefront as a Columbus Day parade passes by.

Switching gears again today, this is another photograph from our October East Coast visit. The trip was primarily to photograph autumn color in New England, but we managed to spend a couple of nights in Manhattan before our homeward flight. Our visit coincided with what New York still refers to as the “Columbus Day Parade,” though the more modern designation is apparently also along the lines of Italian Heritage Day. (One bizarrely noteworthy moment was seeing Rudy Giuliani yucking it up on one of the floats, but I digress…) We wandered around the periphery of the parade route, where the onlookers were often more fascinating than the parade itself.

I made this photograph using one of my “blind shooting” techniques. There are lots of different thoughts about how street photographers should (or should not) interact with their subjects, and I think they all have some validity. Here I did not want the subjects to be distracted by me, so I held the camera in front of me as I walked by and made a couple of exposures without looking directly at the two men. I think it paid off. I feel like there are a number of ways to try to make sense of what is going on in the scene and what it might imply, but I’ll leave it to viewers to figure this out.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.
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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Colorful Buildings

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Colorful Buildings
The boundary between two colorfully painted San Francisco buildings.

Colorful Buildings. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

The boundary between two colorfully painted San Francisco buildings.

These two buildings appeared in another recent photograph, also shot straight on and focusing on the fascinating geometry and color scheme of the structure. The location is, broadly speaking, near North Beach and Fisherman’s Wharf, on a less-travelled side street. The architecture is within the typical San Francisco model — multi-story residences packed wall-to-wall, right up against the sidewalks.

The colors, of course, caught my attention. But there are a few other things going on that also fascinate me. For one, there’s a sort of dissonance between the extremely regular and geometric features of the two residences… and the odd lack of alignment between things like the two windows, the lower edge of the windows in the doors, and the garage door on the left.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Two Poles, Three Doors

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Two Poles, Three Doors
Two unility poles in front of an abandoned industrial. building with three doors.

Two Poles, Three Doors. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two utility poles in front of an abandoned industrial. building with three doors.

This is another take on a subject that I posted about recently while sharing a portrait-orientation image of much the same scene. Keeping in mind that photographs posted here are often part of my “working out” process with images, trying out different ways of seeing them, here’s a bit of my thinking. In the previous version I chose the alternate orientation in order to include more of that sky (a reference to my landscape photography?) and the full height of the utility poles. This time I left only a sliver of the sky, and you have to imagine how tall the poles are. (That’s an important visual concept about which I could write an article, by the way.) So here, I think, we see the geometries of the structure, the poles, and the slanting shadows more prominently.

In that earlier post I wrote something that wasn’t completely accurate regarding the building. I pointed out accurately that it is in a former produce canning area and that it is no longer part of that industry, but I also stated that it is “abandoned.” Technically, it _was_ abandoned, but it appears that the building is now being used as some sort of warehouse or storage area. Of course, you would not see that from the outside where I was, as there are no commercial markings at all — which is a very unusual thing in this country.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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