Tag Archives: photography

Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Urban/Street

Foto Automatica

September 27, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A sidewalk “foto automatica” booth in Florence, Italy

The “foto automatica” (sometimes called a “photo booth” in America) is rapidly becoming a dated thing. Now that everyone carries a smart phone with its built-in camera, every place can be a photo booth. Years ago these were more common — both for simply getting a picture (or several) of yourself and for collecting a group of friends to share the cost and then mugging for the camera.

I don’t see many of these today, but there are a few still around. This one near our hotel in Florence was very popular. This photograph is a bit misleading — on virtually every other occasion when I passed by there were groups of people inside and outside. I suspect that part of the fun is that it produce something that we don’t see so much today, namely snapshots printed on paper.

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

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

Gelateria, Night

September 25, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A gelateria worker checks his phone while waiting for customers in the evening, Florence

These little places are everywhere in central Florence — and it other European cities we visited this summer. Compared to most US streets, the overall impression in most such places is that there is far less overt advertising and fewer big, bright shops with garish lighting. Against that background, the small shops, open to the sidewalk and narrow street, can look quite inviting.

The fact that they sell gelato doesn’t hurt either! Several times we got the gelato “itch” and went out looking. It might have been easier if there had been fewer choices! Often the shops are crowded with people queueing up in front, but the worker in this shop seems to be having a quiet moment to check his phone.

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

Storefronts, Reflections

September 19, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sidewalk shops and window reflections, San Francisco

Near the end of May I did one of my San Francisco walking street photography trips, heading up to The City on the train and then following a large loop through downtown San Francisco. San Francisco is a great walking city, and I’m able to cover a lot of ground and see a lot of diverse urban landscape on these walks — from the waterfront to business districts to industrial areas.

I saw a lot of interesting and possibly unexpected things in this little street side vignette. Oddly, there are no people in the photograph — more typically I line up an urban landscape like this one and then wait for subject to enter the frame. The colors, of the structures and of the shadow light, caught my attention — primarily we’re looking at the greenish awnings and the intense reds found in several places, with everything subject to the blue light of the shadows. And, of course, for this photographer it was frosting on the cake to be able to include the words on the awning in this photograph.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

This Is Jess

September 18, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Door with graffiti and stickers

I truly don’t remember this photograph at all! Sometimes when doing street photograph (in this case at the start of five weeks or what was largely street photography) I photograph quickly and then almost forget quite a few of the photographs as I move on to the next thing, trusting that my ideas about the subject will come back when I see the photograph again as I do my post processing. In this case, no such luck!

I don’t usually photograph graffiti — in fact I used to make it my policy to almost never post graffiti or to disfigure tags that the photographs might contain. But in this case there may be enough in the scene to convince me to let it go. The layers of time and culture in this photograph are easy to overlook, but when you stop to think about it they are quite amazing. I’m sure that this wall and old door have stood for a long time, likely created by and for people who would have little concept of how the surroundings have evolved. The “stuff” on the door includes its own kinds of diversity, ranging from informal scrawls to bits of paper that were created with the intention of affixing them to place like this. And on the left we have the bright colors of the edge of a sign in (I presume) a Chinese language, itself visually contrasting with yet connecting to the newer writings on the green door.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: photography

Foto Automatica

Gelateria, Night

Storefronts, Reflections

This Is Jess

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