Tag Archives: metal

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Blue and Green Receptacles, Yerba Buena Gardens

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Blue and Green Receptacles, Yerba Buena Gardens
Blue and Green Receptacles, Yerba Buena Gardens

Blue and Green Receptacles, Yerba Buena Gardens. San Francisco, California. July 15, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Blue and green waste receptacles next to a glass wall at Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco.

I’m tempted to not say much about this photograph, beyond the basics of where and when and what. The “where” is along the wall of the performing arts center at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center. The when is on a morning with high fog that produced some nice, diffused light. The “what” is, well, a couple of trash cans in front of a large window, behind which there are a couple of other trash cans in the same color scheme, a drinking fountain, and some yellow walls. Profound, no? :-)

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Loading Dock Doors, Townsend Street

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Loading Dock Doors, Townsend Street
Loading Dock Doors, Townsend Street

Loading Dock Doors, Townsend Street. San Francisco, California. July 8, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early morning light on the wall of an industrial building with black loading dock doors along Townsend Street, San Francisco.

This photograph was made very near to where I made another I posted recently, one of a pair of freeway overpasses near the San Francisco Caltrain station. After making that photo, I headed back on Townsend toward the station and as I walked along a row of industrial buildings these loading dock doors and the bright light from the morning sun caught my attention. So, in a suitable old-school approach, I pulled out the camera with the 50mm prime and found a way to frame the scene.

If you are into this sort of thing, you might relate to a few small details in the scene that I like. One is the faint shadow of the two overhead electric lines that cuts a diagonal from upper right to lower left, which also happens to be along the same dimension over which the sunlit diminishes. Aside from the predominant shades of tan on the wall and shades of gray elsewhere, there are a couple of bits of yellow-orange on the curb and the sign near the far right.

If you can read the signs – hard to do at this small size – you will understand that it would be a very bad idea to park here. :-)

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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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.

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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: People, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Man Talking on Cell Phone

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Man Talking on Cell Phone
Man Talking on Cell Phone

Man Talking on Cell Phone. San Francisco, California. July 14, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Man sitting on a bench in front of a San Francisco building and talking on his cell phone.

The first time I worked on this photograph, I made a decision to work it up as a black and white image. However, when I returned to it a month or so ago, I felt like it might be interesting as a color photograph as well.

There is nothing all that special about the location itself – it is on a small street in an area that might be thought of as along the edges of downtown San Francisco. It is not too far to typical large downtown buildings, but here it seems that many might residences and rental units, and many on this street are connected with the Academy of Arts College (or is it “university” now?) facilities that are spread all around the city. I’m intrigued by the interesting shapes and colors and textures of these San Francisco buildings, that often embody some strange combination of a great deal of order (carefully painted rectangular white window frames), utility (the fire escape being almost the most prominent thing on the front of the building), and little oddities (the benches on a slanting sidewalk and guy talking obliviously on his cell phone).

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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.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Windows, MOMA

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Windows, MOMA
Windows, MOMA

Windows, MOMA. New York, New York. August 18, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A scene consisting almost entirely of windows and secondary reflected subjects, Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Look closely and you’ll perhaps see that this is not quite what it might first appear to be. It is something of a visual trick or joke on one level. It is some other things, too.

The bottom line is that almost nothing in this scene is actually where it appears to be or even what it appears to be. The shot was made through an upstairs window of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the vertical shapes are the window frame and a bit of the interior wall at the far right, with some diagonal elements of the frame at top and bottom. But the “scene” outside is entirely reflected in the windows of the adjacent building – this is actually a photograph of a single glass-walled building, not exactly a photograph of an urban scene with buildings and trees and sidewalks and people – those are all reflections in the glass of the building. Obviously, I was also having some fun with perspective lines going off in a range of different directions – the window frame lines converging to the right, the outside perspective lines converging toward the left, and the converging lines on the reflected buildings headed back to the right. There’s more, but I’ll probably get lost if I try to describe it. A close inspection – easier with the print than in this little jpg – reveals some other odd stuff here and there: double images of some of the reflected buildings, some warping and bending of those shapes, people scattered around the courtyard and some moving figures that are barely visible.

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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.