Tag Archives: people

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

Grant Avenue Sidewalk Scene, Evening

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Grant Avenue Sidewalk Scene, Evening
Crowds of people walking past shops along Grant Avenue on a summer evening, San Francisco

Grant Avenue Sidewalk Scene, Evening. San Francisco, California. July 25, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Crowds of people walking past shops along Grant Avenue on a summer evening, San Francisco

To me, this photograph has a feeling of San Francisco. Yes, it is in a tourist location, but the crowded sidewalk, the diverse group of people, the somewhat old and (lovingly) worn buildings and sidewalk, the narrow street, the clutter… all contribute to the charm of The City.

There are a lot of small things in this complex photograph that I like. The center, though it is subtle, may be the man facing the camera and looking into the light of the store. But there is also the family with two children, one clutching dad’s hand and the other, barely visible, looking into that light. There’s more, but I’ll leave it to viewers to look.

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

Clay and Grant, Night

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Clay and Grant, Night
People assemble in summer twilight at the corner of Clay and Grant Streets, San Francisco

Clay and Grant, Night. San Francisco, California. July 25, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People assemble in summer twilight at the corner of Clay and Grant Streets, San Francisco

This was a beautiful San Francisco afternoon and evening. I rendezvoused with some photographer friends in the late afternoon, and after a group dinner we headed out onto the San Francisco streets eventually winding our way into the Chinatown area around dusk. Fog was coming in, turning the ambient light a beautiful blue color, and street and business lights were coming on and producing contrasting warmer toned light.

In these situations photography is a combination of keeping my eyes open and responding intuitively and of watching for potential compositions and subjects and then waiting for the right characters to populate the scene. Certain places are more likely prospects: narrow streets with electrical light coming from both sides, storefronts, and corners. At the latter people often have to stop and wait for traffic to clear or to figure out where to go next, and they sometimes assemble into interesting compositions and stay there for more than an instant. Here, if I recall correctly, my first attraction to the scene was towards the glowing light in this corner market. I quickly noticed the line of people spread across the scene from left to right, and for an instant the man standing in light at the center of the frame looked up and somewhat toward the camera, and against a backdrop of mostly hidden faces his appearance jumped out at me.

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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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

A Purple Mask

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A Purple Mask
People gather outside a store at night.

A Purple Mask. San Francisco, California. July 25 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People gather outside a store at night.

A purple mask, eh? You may need to look closely at this small web version of the photograph, but if you do you may see that one of the people in the scene is carrying a furry purple mask. Don’t ask. I didn’t.

I’ll keep the commentary on this one to a minimum since I have already written a few times about the circumstances of such photographs. I made it on a summer afternoon and night walk through sections of downtown San Francisco. Here I was wandering slowly along Grant, the main tourist street of the city’s Chinatown district. By this time at night the crowds had diminished quite a bit, but most shops were still open. With fewer people on the street, there were better opportunities to find compositions that were less cluttered.

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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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

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#932 Sale
A shop with nighttime visitors, San Francisco

#932 Sale. San Francisco, California. July 25, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

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 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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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