Tag Archives: hill

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

Osgood Place

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Osgood Place
Osgood Place

Osgood Place. San Francisco, California. July 12, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A steep street in downtown San Francisco with a sign for “Osgood Place.”

I came across this photograph from last summer while going over old raw files again this week. To be honest, I barely remember shooting this scene, and the only hints about the precise location are the “Osgood Place” sign (referring to one of the buildings) and the base of the Transamerica Pyramid beyond the end of the street.

When I saw it this week, something caught my attention about it. I like the vantage point that roughly as high as the third story of buildings near the bottom of the street – this does some slightly odd things to perspective lines. I also like the various types of red to brick-red coloration and the row of steel posts along the narrow sidewalk. The subtle green beer bottle against the first post at the right is a touch I like, too. ;-) It is surprising that I managed to take a photograph of this area of San Francisco that includes no people.

(Update: Thanks to some folks who saw this photograph elsewhere, I have learned that the street is also called Osgood Place.)

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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.

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

Peter Macchiarini Steps

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Peter Macchiarini Steps
Peter Macchiarini Steps

Peter Macchiarini Steps. San Francisco, California. July 12, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of the Peter Macchiarini Steps, Kearny and Broadway, San Francisco.

I finally decided to look up the name “Peter Macchiarini” and see who he is and why these steps bear his name. I like this description:

“San Francisco has a history of naming its ugliest streets for famous people. Alice B. Toklas Lane is a scary alley that hosts drug dealers and hookers, Caesar Chavez Avenue is a run down street that primarily serves as a freeway onramp, and the Peter Macchiarini Steps are weather worn stairs fronting a decaying street.”

I’m unfamiliar with his output, but he is described as a well-known jeweler, sculpture, (and in one reference photographer) who is “known for his depiction of Emperor Norton.” (Emperor Norton is yet another San Francisco historical character – the place is joyously rich with them.) Rather than letting this become a history lecture, I’ll suggest a search on his name to find out more.

This photograph largely confirms the description in the above paragraph. This street is so steep that a normal sidewalk would probably not be very safe, so steps were installed instead. And the steps do front some pretty worn and dilapidated structures – though perhaps not so awful as they might appear, given that this sort of wooden construction is quite common in San Francisco and actually a good part of the City’s charm.

To some extent, this is one in a series of “f/8 and be there” photographs using my take on street photography. It was shot at, yes, f/8 using a 50mm prime. I probably most often shoot zooms even when I shoot street, since their flexibility is often very useful. But sometimes I do like to go out with just a 50mm lens and keep things simple.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter (follow me) | Facebook (“Like” my page) | 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.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Hill Near Mesquite Flat, Dusk

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Hill Near Mesquite Flat, Dusk
Hill Near Mesquite Flat, Dusk

Hill Near Mesquite Flat, Dusk. Death Valley National Park, California. March 29, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dusk light above a hill near Mesquite Flat in Death Valley, backed by a large alluvial fan from Tucki Mountain.

At the end of this day I was shooting from the top of a low hill in the Valley east of Stovepipe Wells, and there were interesting subjects throughout almost the entire 360 degree panorama around this elevated position. With this in mind, I had chosen to use the long 100-400mm zoom so that I could have some flexibility in composing elements of this huge scene.

I was mainly working with things that were in the large arc to my west (dunes and Cottonwood mountains and base of Tucki Mountain), north (the main Valley and transverse dunes), and east (the mountains running along that edge of the Valley) since the further subjects of the lower Valley were more or less out of sight beyond the alluvial fan that appears in the photograph. But I kept being intrigued by the low, dark hill on the flats below the similar hill on which I was standing. There is a row of them stretching from near the Devils Cornfield area up and across this alluvial fan. As the evening light transitioned towards post-sunset light I saw that the glow from clouds (a bit of which is visible in the distance above the Black Mountains) was lighting this hill and the surrounding flats in an interesting and colorful way.

But I had a little problem. I was still working a number of subjects and once and I really needed to keep shooting that 100-400. 100mm was still too long for this scene, but I didn’t have time to remove it and put on a shorter lens. I figured that I could simply change the camera to vertical orientation, very carefully level the tripod, and include the whole scene in four panning vertical frames that I could stitch together later. People often do this so that they can produce extremely high-resolution image, but that wasn’t my goal at all. In any case, it worked, and not only did I manage to get the shot that needed a wider lens, but as a bonus it is a very high-resolution shot.

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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.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Manly Beacon, First Light

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Manly Beacon, First Light
Manly Beacon, First Light

Manly Beacon, First Light. Death Valley National Park, California. March 30, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The first morning light strikes Manly Beacon at Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park.

Icon alert!

I had more or less promised myself that I would not photograph at Zabriskie Point on this trip – been there, done that – unless the conditions were really special. But I miscalculated my morning start on this day and discovered that I wasn’t going to make it to my intended destination in time. As I passed Zabriskie on my way to the “other place,” telling myself that I still had a half hour before I needed to be in place for the early light… I noticed that clouds above this area were already starting to pick up the pink color of dawn light. I hesitated for a moment – I really wanted to photograph that other subject – but quickly realized that it would make a lot more sense to the shoot the subject that was here in the light that was developing than to drive further and miss out entirely on the first light.

So I turned into that familiar parking lot with its familiar fleet of photographers’ cars and quickly loaded up my gear. I was a bit surprised that I saw so few people up above at the official overlook, but it was quite windy and I figured that perhaps they had just dropped down on the other side of the wall below this spot. In any case, I had a different spot in mind, one further to the right, so I headed over that way and quickly discovered that the wind was blowing almost too strongly to make photographs. I made a couple of shots from a small gap there and then headed up toward the overlook. At the top of the little trail from the parking lot I dropped onto the small use trail to the side of the wall and was again surprised to see almost no other photographers. I walked a few feet farther and discovered that the “usual crowd” was huddled in a small area in the lee of the wall, trying desperately to find protection from the wind.

These days, my main project when I stop at Zabriskie is to find and photograph small, isolated elements of the landscape with a long lens. For the most part – unless truly magical conditions are present, and they weren’t on this morning – I don’t really spend much time on the classic views of Gower Gulch, the Valley, and the Panamint Range. However, since I’m there and know the progression of the light fairly well at this point, I’m not about to pass up the opportunity to get a better image of one of these iconic subjects. So as the first light was about to hit the summit of Manly Beacon I turned my rig that direction and spent a couple of minutes photographing it as the line between shadow and morning light traveled down its face.

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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.