Tag Archives: man

Photographs: England, Photographs: Urban/Street, Photographs: Utah

Walking Man, Mirrored Wall

September 30, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A walking man and other people are reflected in a mirrored wall, London

Here we have (yet another!) photograph of someone using a smart phone in the urban world, though here there are, I think, a few other elements that got my attention. I’m sure that I was paying attention to the continuous stream of people moving along this sidewalk, and I like to think that some sense of their motion comes through in the photograph. The mirrored wall that contains most of the subjects not only let me capture a “double” of the primary subject, but it also let me bring him forward from the reflected background of all the other people who are only visible in the mirrored image. You might also notice some interesting things related to color.

And there are some surprises. I read somewhere that one of the differences between painting and photography is that while the painter personally puts everything on the canvas (at least mostly) and therefore can know it fully, the photographer cannot possibly know every element of the scene. In fact it is common to only realize that the photograph contains unintentional elements after the fact. One of those is present here — look at the head of the man in his reflected image.

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

Photographs: England, Photographs: Urban/Street

Man On The Phone

September 29, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A man walks along a London street while conversing on the telephone

Recently I’ve been realizing that the image of people using cell phones is quite probably going to one of defining images of this period in time. Being part of it, I’m not sure we are quite conscious of how ubiquitous it is nor of how profoundly it has changed the activities of people and how they act in the urban environment. For example, a few years ago I joked that it used to be that you could tell tourists in the big city by how they wandered around gazing upwards — but that now you can identify them by looking for people walking around while staring straight down and screens.

So this photograph is partly a reference to and inspired by this idea about the phone and its ever-present visually defining role in the current era. Of course it is also about the fellow himself, who has, at least to me, a fascinating appearance. It is also about the surrounding urban landscape with its colors and angles and so forth.

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

Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Urban/Street

Woman, Smoking Cyclist

September 28, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A woman walks into an alley past a smoking bicyclist, Florence/Firenze, Italy

My impression, from about three days in Florence, is that this beautiful city is very much about tourism. (No surprise, right?) In the daytime, starting by mid-morning, and on into the evening it is a busy place, and most of the people seemed to me to have come from some other place. There are restaurants and shops all over the place and, of course, the folks selling trinkets in every square and along popular streets.

Occasionally I did manage to encounter scenes that seemed a bit less polished, especially when we went out early, avoided the most popular through routes, and wandered into some of the narrower streets with fewer businesses. Here, in the morning, a fellow with a bicycle pauses to lean against a wall and smoke, and a woman in what I suspect could be so-called “traditional dress” of some sort furtively ducks into an even small side alley.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Walking Man and Brick Building

September 12, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A man walks past a brick building in Brooklyn, New York

Near the start of our recent long travels we stayed several days in Brooklyn, visiting that area and others around Manhattan. We stated in an area not far from the Brooklyn waterfront, near the end of one of the bridges crossing the East River. Due to scheduling reasons, we were only able to wander this neighborhood a little bit at first, but later we did find some time to explore a bit.

Just north of our location — roughly Williamsburg — was an area with restaurants and shops, where we figured out we would have been luck looking for coffee and meals, since right around our lodgings there wasn’t much. My recollection — slightly vague now six weeks later — is that I made this photograph while walking in this area. I think I remember seeing this squared-looking red (painted) brick building first, and then waiting for someone to walk through the scene.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: man

Walking Man, Mirrored Wall

Man On The Phone

Woman, Smoking Cyclist

Walking Man and Brick Building

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