Tag Archives: north

Photographs: Night, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Repairing a Shop Window

June 7, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

At closing time, a man works to repair a shop window.

On a summer walk through sections of downtown San Francisco, beginning in the late afternoon and continuing after dark, I passed a street-corner shop that was just about to close. These shops, being in an area where such things are necessary, is blocked off at night by metal shutters. An employee was standing in a display window, repairing the shutters.

The man, focused on his work and seemingly unaware that he was now the featured “product” in this display window, was my initial subject. But I quickly saw other things in this scene. On the right side of the frame the wild explosion of colorful merchandise, lights, and reflections of the street behind me is almost impossible to figure out. On the left side there seems to be no reflection and the colors are more subdued, with the open shutters placing a horizontal grid over the dark figure of the store employee. Horizontals on the left; verticals on the right; complexity everywhere.

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

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

#932 Sale

June 6, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A shop with nighttime visitors, San Francisco

This is another in my series of night street photographs. This photograph comes from an evening in more or less the Chinatown area of San Francisco. This work is a sort of counterpoint to my landscape and nature photography. Although the two seem quite different, I think that each type of photography makes me better at the other. This work happens very quickly, usually without a whole lot of time to contemplate — so it exercises the fast and intuitive part of my seeing.

The photographs tend to occur in two ways. In some cases I simply see something happening and I have to photograph it immediately without a lot of time for conscious thought — if I wait the opportunity will be gone. Another sort of work has a stronger connection to landscape, and I think of these photographs as being a sort of urban landscape. As was the case with this photograph, I find a particular subject or composition and then I watch for figures to occupy the space in interesting ways. The interest can come from their relative positions, their posture and the direction they look, how they fit into the available lighting, and the color of their attire. And, as I have pointed out previously, this nighttime handheld street photography is something that only became reasonably possible very recently, with the development of small cameras that will work at very high ISO settings.

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Natural Bridge, Evening Fog, and Coastal Mountains

June 5, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening light on the mountains, coast, and incoming fog along the Big Sur coast

Yesterday I shared a Big Sur Coast photograph — looking north and in black and white. Today’s post is a counterpoint to that one — it looks south and is in color. Both were made late on the same day, and in the same general central area of this rugged coast. It was late in the day and I was looking for an ideal last photographic location of the day, and from this particular overlook I could see down the coast… and the light was going to go before I had time to find another spot!

In many ways I suppose the view is typical. The view extends into the distance where it disappears into fog and coastal haze, and the coastline is an alternating landscape of shallow bays and jutting peninsulas where mountain ridges drop into the ocean. Here and there are the remnants of ridges and bluffs that lost their battle with the ocean long ago, and which now remain only as isolated rock and sea stacks set off from the shoreline. One of the most impressive of them in this photograph is right below the camera position where a large rocky formation is cut through by a natural bridge.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Sea Stack, Bluffs, Coastal Mountains

June 4, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A quiet evening along fog shrouded the Big Sur coastline

I think my favorite times along the Big Sur coast are in the supposed off-season, the non-summer months when the ocean tends to be a bit wilder, the winds blow stronger, and the visitors are fewer in number. Summer is often busy and not as scenic, with thick coastal fog in the morning and evening a frequent occurrence. Especially during fall and winter the passing Pacific weather fronts periodically scour out the clouds and the bring spectacular surf conditions.

Yet this photograph comes from summer. We had started back up the coast late in the day, a process that always has me contemplating a plan for the brief evening light interval — where do I want to be and what do I want to photograph. My plans often don’t play out exactly as I expected: the fog might block the sun, I might get held up photographing some unexpected subject. I made this photograph before the time for the last photograph of the day — those came a very short time later. From this spot the view overlooked a big action of the coastal waters, unusually calm and quiet, as the late afternoon light fell on the coastal bluffs and the afternoon haze turning into fog.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: north

Repairing a Shop Window

#932 Sale

Natural Bridge, Evening Fog, and Coastal Mountains

Sea Stack, Bluffs, Coastal Mountains

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