Tag Archives: people

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

People At The Corner

February 18, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

People stand on a Manhattan corner, waiting for the light to change

I work in various ways when photographing in urban settings. Sometimes I’m somewhat slow and careful, perhaps waiting for people to populate a scene or when treating the urban environment as a sort of landscape. Other times I work more quickly and spontaneously, photographing quickly and intuitively as instants occur and quickly are gone. This photograph came from the latter approach, and my recollection is that I made a series of perhaps three photographs in quick succession, perhaps not even looking through the viewfinder.

There are, obviously, people in the photograph. But something else here links to something I was told by someone who lives and works there. In Manhattan you constantly see these scaffolds set up over sidewalks. I had assumed that it was simply the case that there is work going on all the time. My source tells me it isn’t always quite that simple — sometimes the scaffolding is left up well beyond when is needed… because it is cheaper to leave it there than to take it down and find a place to store it! I enjoy looking a bit more closely at the individuals in this photograph and not just at the group as a whole. The people have a variety of demeanors and poses, some are interacting with others, and they vary in the extent to which they are engaged in the scene verses walking through it without paying much attention.

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Winter Light and Cross Walks

February 17, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Winter backlight illuminates pedestrians and cross walks in Manhattan

People in cross walks seems to be becoming a bit of a theme here. I think that a reason may be that people tend to stay more or less in one place a bit longer while waiting to cross and their paths are more constrained while crossing the street. On top of that, encountering the temporary end of the sidewalk at a street corner does tend to face people into groups, and once the light changes they retain some connection to the group for a moment.

A few other factors appealed to me in this scene, and it wasn’t just the people. The light was wonderful, low winter light coming up the street from Lower Manhattan, and impossible to keep its sources out of the camera’s field of view in this shot. That produced the soft glare of light in front of the buildings on the right and it backlit the figures and case long shadows. Those shadows cross perpendicular to the light-colored lines of the cross walk, with become wider as they get closer to my camera position.

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

Museum Lobby

January 30, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Visitors milling about in the lobby of SFMOMA

It has been a while, and I was more than due for one of my periodic walking days in San Francisco. As per the usual plan, I was out the front door of our house long before dawn, to the train station by bus, and then by train to San Francisco, arriving just before sunrise. There were clouds over the City to my north and west, so I headed to the edge of the Bay, where the skies were clear to the east and early sun shone through on the shoreline and the City. I photographed along the waterfront for a while, and eventually wanted past the Ferry Building and up into the City north of Market Street.

I had a plan to circle back to SFMoMA by late morning, since the expansive Walker Evans show ends there in about a week. I arrived and took a break from my own photograph to view his and that of his contemporaries. (To anyone in the SF Bay Area who likes this sort of thing, go now! There is a ton of work in this show, and it ends a few days into February.) Evans evokes a mixed response for me. I share an interest in some of the subjects that interested him, including certain kinds of shops and other urban structures. His photographs of common tools are exquisite, and the WPA photographs of sharecroppers are really great. Other work impresses me less, and some of the photographs of objects and buildings (though not all of the latter!) impress me at times as being snapshots. But still, there’s a lot of great work in the show, and Evans had a big influence on the ways that many of us see. Once I completed my time in the Evans exhibit, it was time to leave and head back to the train station. But before I left I made a few photographs inside the museum, where I saw for the first time the patters of these lights reflecting on the floor in many places.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Friendly Pizza

January 13, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A bright red pizza shop on a cold winter day in Manhattan

This was one among a string of very cold days in New York City between Christmas and New Years Day. The light was “gray” (though, objectively speaking, “blue” might be a more accurate description) as a result of this weather and of being in the urban canyons of Manhattan. The streets of Manhattan are often very busy and there is a lot to see, but in many areas the actual appearance of the streets is pretty much all business. Aside from those exceptions — some parks and stores, for example — much of the street/sidewalk scene is more about practical than aesthetics. On a cold day this seemed especially true, except that on such a day the contrast with a shop like this one, with its bright red and yellow colors and bright lights, was perhaps stronger than usual.

I sometimes struggle a bit to explain what I “see” when making my street photographs — I know what I’m after but it isn’t easy to put into words. However, I think this photograph does include some of the elements. I see the street as a kind of urban landscape, where the size and color and relatives shapes of things matters. I’m also intrigued by shops, especially when something makes them stand out. (Here it is the color and the corner location.) Perhaps even more important, I’m always on the look out for fleeting human tableaux that form and are gone — here with the fellow striding purposefully toward the shop entrance, the slow-moving man with the wheeled suitcase, and the woman in the winter coat.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: people

People At The Corner

Winter Light and Cross Walks

Museum Lobby

Friendly Pizza

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