Tag Archives: north

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Meadow, Forest, Cloud-Shrouded Peak

June 10, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cloud-shrouded Mount Conness towers above the domes and forest of Tuolumne Meadows

I’ll take a break from the recent urban, night, and street photography and go back to the high country with a photograph from about this time a year ago. I spent a few days in the Tuolumne Meadows area, photography in the high elevation areas of the park. This was a particularly memorable evening that started without a specific plan, led to a surprise meeting with friends and photographs, including a hike down a river to a lovely area of granite slabs, and concluded with sunset back in the big meadow.

As we came back up the river we split up — some heading up onto a nearby high prominence and others (that would be me!) hanging out along the edge of the meadow, between the base of a granite dome and a large herd of grazing deer. As the final sun light touched the tops of the highest peaks, fog formed around the summit of Mt. Conness up along the Sierra crest.

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

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

Alley, Approaching Car

June 9, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A police car approaches in a narrow San Francisco alley

This photograph is pretty much what it appears to be — a narrow San Francisco downtown alley between two major streets, a police car entering the alley (soon to followed by others), a stop sign painted on the ground, and an unusual combination of artificial light coloration and reflections.

This is one of the many street photographs that simply happens, and happens quickly. I was crossing the outlet of this alley, when I looked into it and saw the interesting lighting effects. At that moment the car turned into the alley, providing a focus of brightness at its far end. I raised the camera and photographed, barely having time to carefully compose, and a moment later a couple of police cars approached my end of the alley and i had to get out of the way.

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

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.

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: north

Alley, Approaching Car

Repairing a Shop Window

#932 Sale

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