Tag Archives: financial

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

Glass Facade

July 29, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The reflecting glass surfaces of a downtown San Francisco Tower.

This is another photograph exploring the unreal nature of large urban buildings, especially those almost entirely covered in glass. As in a few of the other recent photographs of this subject, I chose to move very close to the base of the building and shoot almost straight up, lining things up so that the upper edge of the building is barely within the boundary of the frame. The building is an otherwise not-all-that-unusual one along lower Market Street in San Francisco. (I’m terrible about identifying the buildings – I really need to start taking some notes or at least photographing addresses!)

There are three things that caught my attention about this building and this composition. First, the glass wall at the right, which is perpendicular to the main facade of the building, produces a reflection that creates a false impression that the building is symmetrical. But what you “see” of the “right side” of the building is actually the left side in reflection – the actual extent of the building to the right cannot be seen from here. Second, reflected light from windows in another building casts patterns of lighter areas on the vertical, fluted columns that extend straight to the top of the building – and this is also reflected in that perpendicular wall on the right. Finally, while the surface of the building is essentially the reflected image of the sky, the differing reflectivity of alternative vertical rows of windows creates a subtle banding in the lightness of the sky reflection.

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

Towers and Sky

July 27, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two downtown San Francisco buildings and a patch of clear sky.

Whether or not it is apparent, this photograph is the result of some simple shooting and some significant post-processing work. The shot was made handheld during an early evening walk through a portion of San Francisco’s financial district. In addition to looking for the usual street stuff, I was giving my attention to what was above me. I made a series of photographs of very tall buildings, shooting almost straight up and from very close to the bases of the buildings. In “street” style, I was working with a 50mm prime and framing subjects within the constraints of that lens. (Since the subject comes up in this context from time to time… no, I’m not making any statement about the “right” lens to use for street. Sometimes I just like to work with a prime. Sometimes I like to work with a zoom. Sometimes I like both!)

When photographing these subjects in this way, the vertical shooting angle and closeness to the buildings can eliminate the reflections of other buildings and let each structure be seen apart from its surroundings to some extent. In this photograph, the windows (almost) do not reflect anything but sky. In order to emphasize the presence of those windows I chose to apply a blue (!) filter in post, which also had the effect of making the sky almost perfectly white, especially after some curves adjustments. I applied a few other processes as well to get the look I was after here – but those can be my secret!

For probably 90% or more of my photography, I’m pretty much a tripod kind of guy. Working without the tripod, walking through urban areas, and responding somewhat quickly (as least compared to some of my landscape work) to subjects, and then moving on – all of this can be a welcome change from my more typical shooting style.

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

Urban Canyons, Evening

July 25, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An urban landscape photographed in evening light, downtown San Francisco.

I spent a couple of days in downtown San Francisco earlier this month, with opportunities to photograph early and late in the day. Late in the afternoon I headed out and down Market street, starting out in less that amazing light but anticipating that things would certainly become more interesting as the evening wore on. On this particular walk I mostly headed to places that I already knew from many previous visits. I have often looked at this building and thought that it held to potential for a photograph that wasn’t just a “shot of the building,” but so far I had not actually come up with on. As I walked along the east side of the structure I saw that the very bright early evening sun was streaming across and between other tall buildings to the west and then past and through the columns in the left side of the frame. I positioned myself so that one of the columns just blocked the direct sun to make this photograph.

While I am perhaps mainly oriented to landscapes, both small and large, in my photography, I really enjoy shooting urban subjects as well. In some ways the experiences are very different – obviously the hustle and bustle of a major metropolitan downtown area feels a lot different from the quiet and solitude of the mountains, desert, or shoreline. But I respond to many of the same things in both places – juxtapositions of shapes, textures, and most important, the light. In the latter context, this photograph is not all that different from, say, one that features light flowing over the peaks of a Sierra ridge and down a canyon to pass between the trunks of trees. It is, after all, the same light.

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

Visual Puzzle with Tree

June 15, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A tree with early spring greenery against a backdrop of the reflecting windows of downtown San Francisco buildings.

On a mid-April walk though portions of downtown San Francisco to make photographs, while passing through the financial district I was these branches with new spring leaves juxtaposed with a conjunction of building angles, reflected and distorted light, and colors that created a wild abstraction.

The urban environment often holds visual attractions that are not always immediately scene and which sometimes require one to look past the more obvious grit and turmoil. (Those, too, can be a photographic subject… but not this time.) In downtown concrete canyons with glass covered buildings, there is a constantly varying world of wild distortions and conjunctions and perspectives. If you think about it, very little of what you think you see in this photograph is really “there.” The thing the fills the largest portion of the frame is a crazily distorted reflection of other building and sky, fractured and bent by the distortions from the glass – in essence you don’t really see this building at all!

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: financial

Glass Facade

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Towers and Sky

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Urban Canyons, Evening

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Visual Puzzle with Tree

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

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