Tag Archives: man

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

The Pose

February 20, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A woman stands on a sidewalk as a man and a woman photograph her and another talks on a phone

In many of my street photographs that include people, I am seeing some kind of momentary tableau — almost an arrangement that one might imagine and then pose the figures to produce it. These ephemeral arrangements constantly appear and disappear on the street, and I’m fascinated by the arrangements themselves and by the prices of trying to see them fast enough to make photographs.

This one was a bit more static than some — in fact I may have been the most active participant, as I more or less made this and a couple other photographs very quickly as I continued walking past. The primary interaction was between the young man sitting on the step with the camera and the woman with her back to my camera position. Another woman at right was making, with her smart phone, what may have been a documentation or informal photograph. To the left, leaning against a column, another woman seems unengaged with the main action, looking away and holding a cup of coffee.

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

Woman Pushing Stroller

February 19, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A woman pushing a child in a stroller in a cross walk, New York City

Perhaps intuitively I have been making quite a few street photographs at cross walks, either while waiting for the light to change or while crossing the street. I think I need to be more conscious of this situation and the reasons it can work. For one thing, I stop at cross walks. While I do photograph as I’m “on the move,” the pause gives me an opportunity to scan my surroundings a bit more intently. In addition, there are usually other people collecting at the corner and waiting to cross — it might be an individual or it could be a small crowd. Also, when people are crossing they tend to (at least most of the time) be focused on their progression across the street and perhaps are less aware of me. Finally, the cross walk itself can provide an interesting visual context, especially the newer striped design.

This photograph is a bit hard to fully explain. There’s something about the black-attired woman and her unusual white sunglasses, along with her position as she looks toward the right side of the frame. The child seems completely inert, almost like luggage in the stroller. And, again, there are those alternating stripes of pavement and white paint.

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

Tasty Hand-Pulled Noodles

February 16, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Man in vest and helmet emerges from Tasty Hand-Pulled Noodles, Inc.

This is another quite street photography photograph made in Manhattan, almost certainly along the edges of its Chinatown district. On the scale from instant and intuitive to slow and methodical, this photograph fits in the former category. I think I recall stopping for no longer than a few seconds to photograph this place, and timing a couple of the exposures to include this fellow coming out through the door. Once he was out of the picture my interest waned and we moved on.

Of course the name of the business caught my attention — not just “Noodles” or that word plus someone’s name, but “Tasty, hand-pulled noodles, Inc.”, and on a shop that wasn’t, well, very pretentious. The fellow coming out the door was wearing one of those bright orange reflective vests and a bicycle helmet. I saw no bicycle nearby, but perhaps he was a messenger. Not clear from the photograph, unless you notice how much clothing he is wearing, is that he was apparently out on a bicycle on a day when the temperature barely reached twenty degrees and the wind was blowing strongly.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Crossing Lexington

February 13, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A man crosses Lexington on a winter afternoon in New York City

I made this photograph on one of the coldest in a string of very cold winter days in New York City between Christmas and New Year’s Day. On such days we still were out walking around Manhattan quite a bit, but we also sought out shelter and warmer activities. On this day the plan was to visit an exhibit at the Guggenheim. We took the subway up there and arrived late enough that we had to join a line waiting, we presumed, for folks in the already-crowded building to leave so that we could enter. After fifteen or twenty minutes in the line, standing in freezing wind, we realized that the line was not moving at all, and we bailed out for a nearby restaurant where we could warm up.

After lunch we ended up on Lexington, where there was plenty to see and photograph. Many of my photographs on this afternoon took advantage of winter sunlight obliquely slanting across buildings and windows and reflecting onto the sidewalk and street. However, the light for this photograph was different — a sort of soft glow filtering down from the strip of sky above the street. This is a busy place, but during a momentary break in the pedestrian and vehicle traffic this solitary man slowly crossed the street in front of me.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: man

The Pose

Woman Pushing Stroller

Tasty Hand-Pulled Noodles

Crossing Lexington

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