Tag Archives: people

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

Staggering Couple

October 4, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A couple staggers past a closed business along a San Francisco sidewalk.

To me, this photograph has a sort of strange and somewhat perverse quality — like a scene from some bizarre circus or suggesting a madhouse or a dream. It is, admittedly, something of a construction — a construction by means of limiting what is shown of the surroundings and by means of a shutter speed slow enough to blur details and create a fantastical quality. It didn’t hurt that the postures of the couple are somewhat awkward and strange.

As is so often the case for me when photographing in places like this, my attention first went to the architecture and the wild colors and patterns painted on the closed shutters of this shop. That would be somewhat interesting, but hard to make work as a photograph on its own, especially when shooting handheld. And then this couple appeared, walking (sort of) along the sidewalk, hanging onto each other. Set against this incongruous background, they become something quite different from what they actually were.

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

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

Tourists Walking

September 27, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Tourists on a late-night walk pass closed Chinatown shops in San Francisco

This is (yet another!) night street photography image made on one of my summer night walks in The City, in this case between roughly Union Square and almost to North Beach. A group of us meets up to photograph these subjects every so often. We begin before sunset and then continue walking, watching, and photographing right on into the night.

I recently read a nice description of part of what is appealing about photographing the street at night. In the daytime everything is more or less evenly lit, but at night small groups move into and out of the light, becoming “spotlighted” against the backdrop of the night. In places where we might see undifferentiated subjects in the daytime, subjects that pass though localized pools for light acquire more importance, and other elements of the scene recede. Here a small group of slightly uncomfortable-looking tourists shuffles past the closed up storefronts of Chinatown. Something about the group does not look entirely comfortable with their surroundings.

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

Bow Hon Seafood Restaurant

September 1, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A group of people waits for a table at the Bow Hon Seafood Restaurant.

This photograph comes from an evening of night photography in San Francisco, mostly in and around the Chinatown district. This is, of course, a popular tourist area, but somehow the night changes things and makes it perhaps a bit less tacky — or maybe just tacky in more interesting ways! Many of the shops seem to close down early here, even though this was a weekend evening in the height of the San Francisco summer tourist season.

This is almost one of those “photographs of nothing special,” though I think that many of us can identify with the feeling of standing outside small restaurant in an urban area, talking and perhaps waiting for a table as the street life passes by. When shooting handheld photography at night I seek out this little pools of light beneath commercial signs or in the light spilling our from well-lit businesses.

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Market Street

August 25, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A scene along San Francisco’s Market Street

Here is another San Francisco street photography image, this one from the “act quick and grab before it is gone” school of photography. When I’m lucky I may spot a scene like this and find that the human (and other transitory) element is unusually static, and I can take a bit of time to compose and wait for other elements to appear in the scene. On the other hand, often it is a matter of making that photograph almost instantaneously before the person moves, the street is again filled with cars, or any of many other elements change.

In this case I was initially thinking about the figures on the far side of the street and the interesting beam of light reflected down onto the street from the windows of tall buildings. As I walked I turned to my left and saw the person in black leaning against the structure and I had just enough time to make one exposure before he moved. As to what such a photograph might tell us or might mean, I prefer to leave that to your imagination. What is the person actually doing? Why is he leaning on the wall? What, if any, compositional relationships to you see between him and the trash receptacle and the angled light?

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: people

Staggering Couple

Tourists Walking

Market Street

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