Tag Archives: graffiti

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Gated Community

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Gated Community
Doorways with metal security gates in a San Francisco neighborhood

Gated Community. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Doorways with metal security gates in a San Francisco neighborhood.

The title of the photograph is, obviously I hope, an ironic joke. This community relies on gates, but it is hardly the sort of place the comes to mind when we think of a “gated community,” an exclusive sort of place where “regular people” are perhaps not welcome. Here there are gates, too, but on individual doorways of residences and businesses, reflecting the reality of life in areas of inner cities.

The gates intrigue me — what lies behind them, and what is it like to live behind them? But the shapes and patterns produced by the gates, with their vertical texture, the colorful vertical row of painted tiles, and the larger wall surface that has clearly been painted over many times, most likely to cover up graffiti.

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 and Amazon.

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Photographs: Germany, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Blue Shirts, Wall

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Blue Shirts, Wall
Two men in blue shirts at the East Side Gallery, Berlin

Blue Shirts, Wall. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two men in blue shirts at the East Side Gallery, Berlin.

Berlin’s “East Side Gallery” is a section of the Berlin Wall — which has been entirely removed in almost all other areas — that was turned into a sort of street art exhibit, with all sorts of artists adopting sections of the wall and creating a kaleidoscope of wildly diverse imagery. We were in Berlin for a few days in 2018, and one day we walked over this direction.

I’m often a bit confused about how and even whether to photograph street art. One problem is that making photographs of the creative work of others feels a bit shallow at times. Another problem is that with some kinds of tagging that verge on vandalism, the photographer can feel complicit by sharing the tags more widely. (By the way, tagging is rampant in areas of Berlin that we visited, and some of the familiar American ground rules — such as not tagging homes — are regularly ignored there.) But sometimes photographing the work of others makes sense, and here I decided to mostly focus on the other people there to see the work. Once I did that I began to see a lot of striking coincidences and relationships — such as this pair of men wearing blue shirts and walking in front of this wildly detailed section of the wall.

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 and Amazon.

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Photographs: Germany, Photographs: Urban/Street

Time To Dance

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Street art in Berlin, Germany

Time To Dance. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Street art in Berlin, Germany

I made this photograph in Berlin, not too far from the “East Side Gallery,” which is a still-standing remnant of the Berlin Wall that was turned over to artists and which is now covered by paintings. The scene in this photograph is not part of the “gallery,” but was instead a graffiti covered wall we passed on the way to the wall. I don’t make a habit of photographing graffiti, often because I don’t want to contribute the notoriety of some folks who vandalize public and private property. But here the stuff is everywhere and seems to have become a part of the environment, so I’m making an exception.

Besides the wild colors and patterns of this street art, there was another reason for photographing it. While I don’t know “her” cultural significance, the figure in the center of the scene keeps showing up in photographs of mine. I encountered and photographed her twice on a visit to Paris two years ago. In one photograph she appears on a wall, partially obscured by ivy. In another, one of my favorite photographs, she is one of several related figures pasted onto a Le Marais wall behind a small group of pedestrians. Oddly, some of the surrounding “stuff” on this wall seems very similar to that in the Paris photographs, making me think that he appearance may not be quite random.

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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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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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

Manhattan Graffiti

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Manhattan Graffiti
Detail of graffiti in Lower Manhattan

Manhattan Graffiti. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Detail of graffiti in Lower Manhattan

I’m often a bit uneasy about photographing graffiti. For one thing, I feel just a bit like I’m simply recording someone else’s “work” when I do this. For another, I have some concerns about contributing to the visibility of what is, at least in some cases, essentially vandalism. In many cases I have decided to not photograph such things. In others I made photographs and then chose not to share them. In yet other situations I have distorted/modified identifiable “tags” in post so as to avoid being seen to promote vandals. But sometimes graffiti is more than just vandalism. It sometimes rises to the level of art, it isn’t unusual for its themes to present some information about places and times, the colors and forms can be interesting, and the weathering and layering of successive examples can produce unanticipated effects.

I’m pretty certain that I photographed this tiny section of a large bit of street are while walking somewhere in lower Manhattan or perhaps as far us as the Chinatown/Little Italy area. I was on the move on the day I made the photograph, not lingering very long in any one place, so my recollection is that I saw it, photographed it, and moved on. The color palette of this image usually would not attract me, but somehow here it did – perhaps because it seemed somewhat atypical of such street art.

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