Tag Archives: man

Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Restaurant, Diner, Bicycles

December 16, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A man sits at a table at an outdoor restaurant at night, Florence, Italy

Photographing in the streets of Florence, Italy was a joy when we visited this past summer. My only regret is that we were there for such a short time. We spent a week in the hills between Florence and Siena, and we picked up our rental car in Florence before leaving for the hills. (And, yes, driving in Florence is just as much fun as you have heard.) Then we returned to Florence and had parts of three days there before leaving. As I know fully understand, three days was not nearly enough time!

In one way, the streets of Florence seem to have a more uniform look than many American cities. There are few obvious commercial signs and many buildings are roughly the same shade of brown. But the streets are often very narrow and they twist and turn in all kinds of interesting ways, occasionally opening up to large squares or the banks of the Arno River. At night things are even more magical. One moment you might find yourself in the midst of crowds of people, and in another you might be on a deserted side street. This small street, with its beautiful lighting, extended off of one of the large squares, a somewhat busy place, but here there was just one man sitting at this sidewalk cafe.

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

Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Urban/Street

It Doesn’t Help And No One Cares

December 10, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

This is, obviously, not “the usual” around here, but it seemed worth sharing. We were visiting a sort of art fair during a Thanksgiving visit to Southern California. At first I just looked at the arts and crafts, but having a camera in my hand I, of course, started to look at other things and to look at the event in different ways than most people who attend holiday fairs.

I could probably write an essay about this little photograph, but I’ll keep it short. At this mostly happy event, there was, once I looked more closely, a surprising undercurrent of lonely looking people. The man sitting on the bench in the spot of sunlight, hands in front between his legs and head falling to the side, was certainly not the only one. However, the juxtaposition of this person with another man wearing a shirt with the cynical slogan, ostensibly during a “holiday” event, was jarring.

Leave a comment or question using the form. (Click the title to see the full article and to comment if you are viewing it on the home page.)

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: France, Photographs: Urban/Street

Along the Seine

October 28, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Most of our time in Paris this past August was spent walking, and there are certainly plenty of great places to walk in this city! But Paris is big enough that sometimes it is useful to get around in other ways: train, bus, subway… and boat. So, after a few days of looking around on foot we decided to catch one of the river tours up and down the Seine through the city. We’ve done this in other cities and discovered that the boats often provide a very different view of things than what we see from the streets.

I quickly figured out that much of my photography from the river would best be done with a longer lens, so I put a telephoto zoom that I had brought along on my little Fujifilm XPro2 camera. Photographic subjects, when seen from a boat, often pass very quickly and there would be little time for lens changes. I photographed almost continuously — architecture, bridges, people along the banks of the river, and more. Here I saw a fellow relaxing against a wall at the top of a stairway leading down to a walkway along the river.

Leave a comment or question using the form. (If you are reading this on the home page, click the article title to see the full article and the comment form.

Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Urban/Street

Walking Man, Narrow Street

October 16, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A man walks up a narrow street in Florence, Italy.

This past summer we had the chance to do some extensive travel. The “main event” was a five-week trip that began in New York City and continued to London, Paris, Heidelberg, and various places in Italy. After a week in the wine and olive country of the Chianti region we returned to Florence for a few days before our return flight to the US. My only regret about this last phase of the journey was that we didn’t give ourselves nearly enough time in Florence!

Yes, Florence is now crowded with tourists, and in a place that isn’t that large to begin with the effect is hard to ignore. But putting that aside for a moment, Florence (at least to this observer) combines many things that seem typical of Italy with its own unique qualities. We stayed in the old part of Florence, between the Arno and the Duomo and not far from the Uffizi Museum. The streets here are strikingly narrow and lined with tall buildings, almost all in tones of brown to tan. The effect on the light reminds me in ways of being in the canyons of the American Southwest, though populated and perhaps more twisty, not by necessity following the effect of gravity on water. Unlike American cities, there are very few obvious signs in most places. And if you go out to the right places at the right times of day you can find nearly empty streets like this one.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: man

Restaurant, Diner, Bicycles

It Doesn’t Help And No One Cares

Along the Seine

Walking Man, Narrow Street

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