Tag Archives: photo

Converging Lines and Clouds

Converging Lines and Clouds

Converging Lines and Clouds. San Francisco, California. September 16, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of converging lines of downtown San Francisco buildings with cloudy sky.

On this “urban landscape” I went with a wide focal length and decided to just let those perspective lines go right ahead and converge! The photograph was made on a morning walk up the lower part of Market Street as the fog began to clear back from the bay.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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keywords: san francisco, california, usa, travel, tourist, scenic, city, urban, downtown, perspective, converging, lines, angles, structure, texture, shadow, reflection, cloud, sky, fog, line, form, shape, tower, building, skyscraper, window, wall, surface, abstract, stock, monochrome, black and white

Holiday Photographs – There’s Still Time

If you are interested in ordering a print for a holiday gift – or for yourself – there is still time… but not much! Almost all of my photographs are available as prints. I can print many of them at sizes of up to 24″ x 36″. Smaller sizes are also available of course.

Prints ordered during the next 72 hours or so can be shipped via 2-3 day mail on Monday and should arrive by Christmas. If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area I can probably push that timing a bit – and if I’m out doing photography in your area I might even be able to deliver a print to you myself.


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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

G Dan Mitchell: Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


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

Reflection Patterns, San Francisco

Reflection Patterns, San Francisco

Reflection Patterns, San Francisco. San Francisco, California. September 16, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Many layers of reflections on windows of downtown towers in San Francisco, California.

I’m crazy about the “reflections of reflections reflections…” that you can find in urbanized downtown areas when the light is just right. While the shapes and forms of the buildings are, I think, somewhat interesting, what intrigued me about this scene were the almost psychedelic shapes and colors of the warped, bent, and oddly juxtaposed reflections covering almost all of the shiny surfaces of the buildings. (Of course, all of that is a bit hard to see in this small online jpg version.)

This is definitely one of the photographs in my “urban landscape” category. I have to think about the light and the shapes and distance in much the same way I might if I were photographing in a natural canyon or deep valley. However, unlike “real” landscape photography, shots are these are almost always done hand held and shot fairly quickly while wandering around on foot.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email

keywords: san francisco, california, usa, travel, tourist, scenic, city, urban, downtown, architecture, building, tower, skyscraper, structure, form, shadow, column, sky, cloud, angle, wires, windows, walls, stock

Experiment #2: A Hint

Here are the three source images:

The differences among them are obviously in the amount of noise that was added to the image. No noise was added to the first image – any noise there was in the original capture. 10% level “Uniform” noise was added to the second image in Photoshop. 20% “Uniform” noise was added to the third image in the same way.

The soft photograph was chosen to avoid masking the noise with a lot of other sharp detail – this image provides very smooth gradients from black to white, where noise is typically easier to detect. I also chose this image because it is nearly – but not quite – monochromatic. This meant that I could increase the effect of the noise by using color noise rather than limiting to monochromatic noise – and that the color noise would tend to be more visible against the nearly monochromatic background.

The original set of 6 jpgs includes two from each of the three versions shown here. For last-minute fun you could still visit the comment page and try to a) determine whether or not the differences are visible and b) which pairs of images are the least noisy, more noisy, and most noisy.

More information to come later this evening.


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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

G Dan Mitchell: Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


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