Tag Archives: downtown

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Fire Escape Ladder, Brick Building

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Fire Escape Ladder, Brick Building
Fire Escape Ladder, Brick Building

Fire Escape Ladder, Brick Building. New York, New York. August 24, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

On the final morning of our August (2011) visit to New York City, we took the subway down toward the lower end of the island to meet our son – the plan being to walk though Soho and (I think) the West Village, ending up at a gallery in Chelsea. After taking care of the most pressing bit of initial business – coffee – we wandered on through Soho… and I think this photograph was made there.

New Yorkers undoubtedly know exactly is going on with this light, but for the rest of the world… the morning sun was passing through a relatively narrow gap between buildings to strike this brick wall and partially pick off this green emergency exit zigzagging down the front of this building. In a lot of ways, this isn’t totally different from shooting natural landscapes – go out early, look for interesting subjects, find good light, make photographs. It isn’t totally the same – duh! – either. Not only can you walk here from coffee, but we (my son and I) shot without tripods, and I stuck to a single 50mm prime to keep things simple.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Bridge, Olympic Sculpture Park

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Bridge, Olympic Sculpture Park
Bridge, Olympic Sculpture Park

Bridge, Olympic Sculpture Park. Seattle, Washington. January 1, 2008. © Copyright 2008 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A bridge crosses railroad tracks at the Olympic Sculpture Park, Washington.

Back in 2008 I travelled to Seattle on mostly family business. I arrived a bit early and ended up spending some time wandering around the Olympic Sculpture Park, a place I enjoy both for the art and for the architecture and other features of this public space.

The bridge across the railroad tracks had interested me previously, but I’ve found it a difficult subject to photograph – somewhat surprisingly, since it seems to me like such an obvious thing to photograph. So in this image I more or less obscured most of the bridge itself, leaving not much more than the white vertical supports along its exterior and its overall shape and mass. I thought that the relationships between the texture of the metal bridge and the concrete underneath was interesting, as were some of the relationships between various shapes and angles. As I have done in a few other recent photographs, I played around with “pure” color and black and white renditions of the image – in the end deciding to sort of split the difference, thinking that a somewhat de-saturated color image might be most in line with my memory of the place and the scene on that winter day.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Chrysler Building and Street Lamp

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Chrysler Building and Street Lamp
Chrysler Building and Street Lamp

Chrysler Building and Street Lamp. New York City. August 18, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of the Chrysler Building and a lamp post in New York City.

Yes, we are in New York City. Needless to say, this is a “target rich environment” for street, urban, and architectural photography. This familiar building is the first post from this trip. It is a black and white photograph for a couple of reasons. First, this turns out to be one of those photograph where I like both the color and black and white interpretations. Second, and more practical, I am working from an uncalibrated monitor and can’t be certain what the colors will look like. With that in mind, it seemed like a good idea to post the BW images first!

The Chrysler Building is an easily recognized Manhattan landmark… especially if you saw “Ghostbusters.” We were out for a “first morning in New York walk” on our first full day here, and the area around this nearby building seemed like a decent objective.

(On a practical note: As with the color calibration issue, I’m not in my usual workflow environment while on the road, so don’t be surprised if some things don’t look exactly like they normally do.)

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Loading Dock Doors, Townsend Street

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Loading Dock Doors, Townsend Street
Loading Dock Doors, Townsend Street

Loading Dock Doors, Townsend Street. San Francisco, California. July 8, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early morning light on the wall of an industrial building with black loading dock doors along Townsend Street, San Francisco.

This photograph was made very near to where I made another I posted recently, one of a pair of freeway overpasses near the San Francisco Caltrain station. After making that photo, I headed back on Townsend toward the station and as I walked along a row of industrial buildings these loading dock doors and the bright light from the morning sun caught my attention. So, in a suitable old-school approach, I pulled out the camera with the 50mm prime and found a way to frame the scene.

If you are into this sort of thing, you might relate to a few small details in the scene that I like. One is the faint shadow of the two overhead electric lines that cuts a diagonal from upper right to lower left, which also happens to be along the same dimension over which the sunlit diminishes. Aside from the predominant shades of tan on the wall and shades of gray elsewhere, there are a couple of bits of yellow-orange on the curb and the sign near the far right.

If you can read the signs – hard to do at this small size – you will understand that it would be a very bad idea to park here. :-)

G Dan Mitchell Photography
About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)