Tag Archives: man

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Blue Shirt Pedestrians, Linear Landscape

November 16, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two pedestrians in blue shirts walk past architecture emphasizing vertical and horizontal lines

A photograph like this is a bit hard to explain, but I’ll try. At least a little bit. As is often the case, for some reason this structure – a parking lot – caught my attention. I like the texture of concrete when doing city photography, and this landscape of lines seemed a bit striking, and in fact it got me thinking again about the very linear nature of much of the urban environment. Aside from a few things – the green tree, the red card, and the people – essentially everything in this scene can be regarded as being a sum of horizontals and verticals, from the obvious vertical covering of the garage to the wires, to the street lanes and lane lines, to the sidewalk, and the rows of squares on the background building.

It occurs to me from time to time that there is something very unnatural about this, and it might even be a cause of the disconnect from the environment that can occur in such places. But as (pretty much) always, the constructed world is not perfectly linear. But still, to me, the two people walking along the sidewalk, whose blue attire also caught my attention, look very small and very passive relative to the constructed world they inhabit.

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.5

Photographs: Germany, Photographs: People, Photographs: Urban/Street

Reading on the Steps

November 10, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A student studies a book on steps at the Physikalisches Institut of Heidelberg University, Germany

On our several walks to and along the Heidelberg Philosophen Weg, we passed by this university building, so I finally stopped for a moment and made a few photographs. The main building looks like an academic structure of some sort, so I had made a guess as to what this place was before I found the sign. One student reads on the steps, and a few of the ubiquitous bicycles are parked nearby. Also ubiquitous is the bit of political graffiti – found in many places near the University buildings, and often relatively small compared to the stuff we frequently see here in the US.

Yes, in a general sense, another postcard photograph. :-)

Photographs: San Francisco

Person in Blue Shirt, Pigeon

August 23, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A person in a blue shirt and a pigeon share a Stockton Street sidewalk in San Francisco.

Continuing my fascination with the walls of San Francisco buildings… this one is on Stockton Street just above China Town, and near the base of stairs descending from an overhead portion of the street under which Stockton continues through a tunnel. After I made this photograph I realized that I had also photographed it last year, from almost the same position and also with figures in front of it. But I decided that I like the subtle pigeon (perhaps hard to see in this small presentation) in front of the doorway, the guy in the blue shirt and shorts sauntering into the frame, and the fairly harsh front-lighting and shadows.

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.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Man in the Window

August 12, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Reflections in the windows of a financial district building, San Francisco, California.

I’m fascinated by the reflections in and among the windows of urban buildings, especially those whose surfaces are primarily glass. It often seems when I look at them that the building barely has a real surface at all, and instead most of what I see when I look is the often distorted reflections of other surrounding buildings and signs and perhaps some sky or clouds. So when I walk in San Francisco with my camera I’m often looking up, not so much to simply photograph the buildings but also to watch for these transitory conjunctions of reflections

I made this photograph while walking a narrow street in San Francisco’s financial district late in the day as fog was softening the early evening light. I was momentarily almost shocked to see the face of this man who, divorced from the full context of the sign on which he appeared, looking like huge and intense figure in the windows of this building. And aside from the two horizontal ledges and the thin structures between the window panes, everything else in the image is also a reflection of the surfaces of buildings around and behind me.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: man

Blue Shirt Pedestrians, Linear Landscape

Reading on the Steps

Person in Blue Shirt, Pigeon

Man in the Window

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