Tag Archives: neighborhood

Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Simplicity

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Simplicity - A small appliance store front window with many colorful signs, San Jose, California.
A small appliance store front window with many colorful signs, San Jose, California.

Simplicity. San Jose, California. December 28, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A small appliance store front window with many colorful signs, San Jose, California.

This is another in the “walked out my front door and made photographs” series, being a store front that is within a half mile or so of my home. I’m a bit of a fan of photographing the fronts of these small businesses that appear to be anything but chain operations. Each one is its own unique universe and, I assume, reflects the owner’s personality in many ways including the cumulative effect of focusing on one small area of the world for many decades. I often wonder what it must be like to live in a world of vacuum cleaners for more than five decades – and I don’t mean to imply anything by that question beyond a serious interest in how our primary interests end up influencing how we experience and see the world.

The visual quality of these places also interests me. I can initially simply be overwhelmed by the details that must have accumulated over time – the many brightly colored signs, a few things hung on walls, displays of specialized equipment and materials with brand names I barely recognize. Yet there is a very carefully created order in all of this. It is fun – for me at least! – to spend some time looking at these scenes and starting to pick out the small details that I might not initially notice. (Of course, that is easier with a big print than it is with this little jpg!)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Central California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Front Yard After Rain

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Front Yard After Rain

Front Yard After Rain. San Jose, California. January 2, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of an urban home and front yard after rain, San Jose, California.

Continuing with the “urban landscape” theme – and there are quite a few more of these in the pipeline – this is the front of an older home in a San Jose neighborhood, photographed in the early evening after rain had just cleared.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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