Tag Archives: old

Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Walking Man, Florence

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Walking Man, Florence
A man walks down a narrow Florence, Italy street

Walking Man, Florence. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A man walks down a narrow Florence, Italy street.

The old part of Florence is, at least in places, a fascinating maze of old streets, narrow and twisting and lined by buildings tall enough to cut out most of the direct light from the sky. In the right places it is possible — or nearly so — to photograph streets without including the sky and in light that is almost entirely shadowed.

These narrow streets can also be quite crowded with tourists at certain times of the day — so crowded that a photograph of a street like this one would have an entirely different effect. I quickly discovered that by going out very early in the morning or late enough in the evening I could find scenes in which tourists did not predominate.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Woman On Bicycle, Street Musician

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Woman On Bicycle, Street Musician
A women on a bicycle stops to check her phone as a street musician rests against a brick wall, Florence, Italy

Woman On Bicycle, Street Musician. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A women on a bicycle stops to check her phone as a street musician pauses against a brick wall, Florence, Italy.

Yes, I seem to be in a retro frame of mind recently, what with a significant number of black and white images plus a thread of street photography. Every so often, I think, my roots in black and white photography seem to come back to the foreground. I began photography decades ago (how many decades I won’t say…) when my father took me — and my siblings — under his photographic wing. He started us with very basic cameras, and eventually we graduated to helping him in his home darkroom. Obviously, in those days, virtually everyone was workmen in black and white, so that’s were I started. My photography and that of the folks who caught my attention was entirely black and white. Eventually I moved to slide film, but that initial exposure to black and white stuck.

This is another of the photographs I made in Florence, Italy back in the summer of 2016. As often happens, I move on from a collection of photographs as other subjects catch my attention — so it is almost always profitable for me to return to the “abandoned” files later on, where I almost always discover images that I like. While Florence in the summer can be a very busy place, crowded with hordes of tourists, if you poke around in the right places at the right times you can find quieter scenes. And if you like soft, shaded light, you can often find that in abundance here, too.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Night Street, Florence

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Night Street, Florence
An empty, curving street at night, Florence, Italy

Night Street, Florence. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An empty, curving street at night, Florence, Italy

Three years ago we visited Florence, Italy near the end of more than a month of European travel. We were in Italy for almost the last two weeks of our trip, with most of the time spent with extended family in the hills of the Chianti region. From there we went to Florence for a few days of sightseeing, eating, museum visiting, and photography before we caught our flight back home.

In the summer, central Florence is a pretty busy place, filled with tourists during most of the daytime hours. I like photographing people, but it can be overwhelming. However, there were two times of the day when I could walk and photograph in relatively crowd-free conditions: early in the morning and late enough in the evening that the crowds had thinned. By the time I walked past this street, in a place where there would have been a good number of people earlier in the day, it was essentially deserted.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Booklets

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Booklets
A portion of an old sign on the wall of a business

Booklets. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A portion of an old sign on the wall of a business.

From what I can tell, I’m not the only photographer who is occasionally distracted by subjects like this, nor the only photographer who photographs odd signs. I came across this one on a wall as I walked through an area of San Francisco. At this point, I suspect that the sign is largely forgotten — it was hidden behind a truck in an area along the fringe of a gas station.

There are several things that can be fun or interesting about these signs. For one, I’m intrigued by signs that are not associated with “name” businesses or products, but which are truly one-of-a-kind. Typically this means that they were built and/or painted by hand, and often some of the rough edges show. (Judging by the dark areas on the letters, I suspect that this wall was tagged, and someone painted the main wall but left the text of the sign “as is.”) The distressed quality of the wall is also interesting, with its peeling and fading paint. Finally, taken out of context like this, the letters of signs can become disembodied and divorced from their literal meaning… and they sometimes start to look rather odd.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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