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Brooklyn Rorschach Test

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Brooklyn Rorschach Test
Brooklyn Rorschach Test

Brooklyn Rorschach Test. Brooklyn, New York. August 8, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Layers and paint and removed paper create patterns on a concrete wall in Brooklyn

There isn’t really a lot to say about this photograph, but there might be a few things to ask. This was more or less a quick “grab shot,” taken while walking not far from the waterfront at the Brooklyn Bridge Park, where it isn’t uncommon to find places where various signs and billboards have been posted and then removed.

So, what you are looking at here is the result of various layers of paint and the after-effects of material that was glued to the walls and then removed. I think it is interesting to ask what you see in these patterns when you look at them. The more I look the more I see, but I won’t try to convince you that what I see is the “right” thing to notice, and I think that lots of other interpretations are possible — or that you might even choose to simply see it as a place where stuff was removed from a black and green wall!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Wall, Man Walking

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Wall, Man Walking
Wall, Man Walking

Wall, Man Walking. New York City. August 10, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A man walks on a painted sidewalk in Manhattan, New York City

I made this little “grab shot” along a narrow and curving street in New York City’s Chinatown district, probably as we were waiting for others to arrive for dinner at a neighborhood restaurant. Given the way my photographic eye works, I first noticed the pattern from the metal door and brick walls, with lines converging as the sidewalk traveled further down the street. I picked this spot because of some of the things that interrupted that pattern — the spilled paint on the sidewalk, the doors, and the utility pole.

Then I waited and watched. In almost all cases it will be little more than a moment or two before someone interesting wanders into this urban landscape and humanizes it in one way or another. I got lucky here, as this fellows attire fit with the colors of the existing scene, and I was able to photograph him just as he passed and walked across the paint-spill section of the sidewalk, with his face invisible to the camera.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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: New York City, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Friday Night, Manhattan

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Friday Night, Manhattan
Friday Night, Manhattan

Friday Night, Manhattan. New York City. August 8, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People out on a Friday night in Manhattan

On this evening I finally got to seriously try out something that I had been thinking of doing for some time — handheld street photography at night. Current digital cameras are providing low-light capabilities now that were almost unimaginable just a few years ago, to the point that it is possible to shoot at very high ISO setting and shoot in urban darkness almost as if it were daytime. (To be sure, there are some issues related to things like dynamic range, the need to use very large apertures, narrow DOF, dealing with noise in post, etc.)

We had just left a club where we heard a musical performance and we decided to head over to Washington Square where yet another performance was going on. Almost as soon as we left the first building it hit me that this was my opportunity to give this a shot, so I worked with a 23mm (35mm equivalent) f/1.4 lens and cranked up the ISO and started shooting. I quickly noticed that I actually had some exposure headroom, and I could lower ISO stop down a bit. I also quickly became fascinated by the nighttime shadows, which are nothing like what we see during the day. I started looking for bright “pools of light” under artificial lighting and then constructing compositions and waiting for an interesting juxtaposition of people and other elements.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Tourists, Brooklyn Bridge Park

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Tourists, Brooklyn Bridge Park
Tourists, Brooklyn Bridge Park

Tourists, Brooklyn Bridge Park. Brooklyn, New York. August 8, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tourists walk along the East River shoreline at the Brooklyn Bridge Park as a sailboat passes

I made this photograph in the DUMBO (“Down Under Manhattan Bridge Underpass”) area of Brooklyn’s waterfront, near where both the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges arrive from across the water in Manhattan. After a lot of time spent wandering Manhattan with camera in hand, we decided to take a slightly lower key day and wander Brooklyn instead. We walked here and there, stopping for lunch in a great little sandwich shop, and then wandered some more, traveling through Park Slope until we ended up at the waterfront Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Without any firm plan, but with a general thought of taking a water taxi uptown and into Manhattan, we walked along this park for a while, soon arriving at the water taxi dock. We bought our tickets and then had some time to sit around on this sunny afternoon and wait and watch passers-by. I kept looking a this small are of the promenade where the railing curved back in towards the ferry dock and from which a great panoramic view of Manhattan was available. There was an ebb and flow of other visitors, and among them there were occasionally some interesting juxtapositions of people, clothing, activities, and more. This brief instant, featuring people in various colorful shirts and a passing sailboat (!) seemed like a worthwhile one to capture.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.