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Man in Subway Car

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Man in Subway Car
A man stands near the doorway between two cars of a historic New York subway car

Man in Subway Car. New York City. December 27, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A man stands near the doorway between two cars of a historic New York subway car

This is another of my historic subway photographs from late December 2015 in New York City. During the holiday season, on one day the system trots out the old rolling stock and folks can ride the old trains over a section of the modern subway system under Manhattan. We got there early and caught the first run of the train heading uptown, then caught it again for the trip back.

The experience is remarkable. Some of these subway cars are very old, and while they still look like subway cars there are aspects of the experience that are quite different. They are very noisy! Sometimes the lights switch off for a moment, presumably as the train rolls over un-powered sections. The passageways between cars are entirely open — the ends of the cars bounce up and down relative to one another and the wind streams past. This photographs looks through that inter-car passage and toward the connected car, where a man stands in the aisle.

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: New York City, Photographs: People, Photographs: Photographers, Photographs: Urban/Street

Photographer Louis Mendes

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Photographer Louis Mendes
Photographer Louis Mendes rides a historic New York subway car

Photographer Louis Mendes. New York City. December 27, 2015. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Photographer Louis Mendes rides a historic New York subway car

The timing of our December 2015 visit to New York City coincided with a special event on the New York Subway system — a day when historic subway trains run along one Manhattan route. Our sons had told us about this before, and we all met up at the south end of the line to catch the first train. It is made up of a variety of cars — some from just before the vintage of the current trains and others from much further in the past. It is a big event, and by the time the second run began there were big crowds. (One fun thing was watching the looks of the faces of folks at stations who didn’t know about this… as ancient subway trains rolled in and stopped to take on passengers.)

As I walked through one of the cars there was a big group of photographers, many holding vintage film cameras, some rigged up to work with modern electronic flash units. This fellow immediately caught my eye, and for a bunch of reasons. Many years ago my father had a camera almost exactly like his, and I thought it was the coolest thing back then. I also was taken by the contrast between his rig, with his giant camera and multiple flash units, and what I use to photograph in circumstance these days… a very small mirrorless system that works so well in low light than I never use flash. And I was pretty sure I recognized him, and thought that I had read about him somewhere. It was too crowded and noisy to talk, but I later figured out that he is street photographer Louis Mendes, who is well-known for photographing with this eclectic equipment in Manhattan. (I later ran into him again in front of the B&H store, and I recently read an interview in which he said that is his “third favorite” location for photographing.)

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: Austria

Salzburg Castle, Bavarian Alps, Sky

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Salzburg Castle, Bavarian Alps, Sky
Looking towards the Bavarian Alps from the Salzburg Castle

Salzburg Castle, Bavarian Alps, Sky. Salzburg, Austria. July 17, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Looking towards the Bavarian Alps from the Salzburg Castle

I’ll admit that this photograph has one of the more unusual compositions among my photographs. Late in the afternoon on a summer day, I made the photograph from within an upper courtyard of the Salzburg Castle during our visit to that part of the world a couple of years ago. We were actually staying in Bavaria, in the portion of the distant mountains that is in Germany, but we arrived by train in Salzburg, departed the same way, and managed to travel down to the flatlands and visit the city on a couple of other occasions.

The castle is a spectacular place, located on the high ground above the old town and a bend in the river and having a commanding view of the surrounding flatlands and all the way to the mountains. As impressive as it is to us today, it must have been far more impressive when it was built. From this vantage point I was just able to see over one of the upper walls toward the mountains, and the backlit, hazy sky glowed. I suppose that the photograph is all about shapes, mostly abundant rectangles, but also the triangular shapes of the roof of the white building. The mountains echo those shapes, but inverting the tones — where the white buildings are the lightest things in their part of the image, the mountains are the darkest things in the upper rectangle holding the distant landscape.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Photographs: Germany

Heiliggeistkirche Steeple, Altstadt-Heidelberg

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Heiliggeistkirche Steeple, Altstadt-Heidelberg
The old part of Heidelberg with the steeple of the Heiliggeistkirche.

Heiliggeistkirche Steeple, Altstadt-Heidelberg. Heidelberg, Germany. July 10, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The old part of Heidelberg with the steeple of the Heiliggeistkirche.

The Heiliggeistekirche is a main landmark in Heidelberg — not as monumental as the old castle, but a central feature and visible from all around. Most often we approached the old town by walking over the hill on the Philosophenweg, an old footpath that follows the ridge parallel to the river, and then descending to cross the bridge. From this elevated perspective it is possible to see a lot of the town, from the waterfront to the castle to the hills that rise beyond.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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