Tag Archives: photography

Art, Photography, and “Manipulation”

June 1, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Creosote Bush, Dunes, Morning — A creosote bush among sand dunes, morning

Imagining that a photograph that is “straight out of camera” is better than one that has been “manipulated” in post is equivalent to imagining that the words coming straight out of one’s mouth are better than those resulting from careful and thoughtful editing.

While there is an art to extemporaneous expression, there is at least as much art in carefully crafted work. Continuing to refine and perfect the content and its expression is not remotely unethical. The objective is to produce a pure, clear, concise, more powerful and direct expression of the artist’s truth.

This is true of essentially every mode of human expression: painting, sculpture, movie-making, writing, music, and on and on. Even the seemingly extemporaneous expressions (jazz, etc) are the result of long preparation and practice and planning and are ultimately not simply things that happen in the moment.

It is nonsensical to imagine that photography should be the one art that eschews careful refinement and thought and the distillation and perfection of expression that can make it truer and more powerful.

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

Halal Cart

May 8, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sidewalk Halal food cart, New York City

This is another photograph that I have had sitting on my computer desktop for months, since shortly after we returned from New York on the last days of 2015. There probably isn’t a whole lot to say about this photograph. (Or is there?) These food carts are everywhere in New York, day and night. And I hear that they are soon coming to the San Francisco Bay Area, too. It must have been a slow day for the vendor, since he seems to have plenty of time to sit at the front of the cart and watch the world go by.

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Urban/Street

Funeral No Parking

March 19, 2016 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Street signs stored next to a funeral parlor doorway, New York City

I can state with certainty that this is the only time I have made night photographs of funeral homes in Manhattan on Christmas Eve. Go ahead! Prove me wrong! ;-)

So, how did this happen? As many street/urban photographs happen. I have a camera with me wherever I go, day and night, in places like this, and when I see something that catches my eye I make a photograph. We had started the evening by briefly joining the throng up on 5th Avenue where there are tons of holiday lights and displays. After leaving that madhouse we headed down toward Chinatown to find a place where we have had dinner a few times before — but we arrived to find that it had apparently become very popular since our last visit. We were told that the wait might be two hours. So we set out to find something less crowded nearly. We eventually found a nice quite Vietnamese restaurant but first we passed this side street with the doors and glowing windows of this funeral parlor.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Ben Is Watching

March 10, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A Brooklyn, New York wall

I generally make it a rule to not photograph graffiti, though it is not quite a hard and fast rule. I almost never photograph a subject with someone’s vanity tag on it, and in a few cases when a larger subject as been compelling I have removed or defaced the tag in post. There are probably a range of reasons that one might write or scribble or draw on public and private property, ranging from a poor sense of social belonging to a desire to produce something like art — so the decision to show or not isn’t without context.

In this case, the wall seemed to be one that had become, likely by more or less popular agreement (or a concession?) a place where such public art is perhaps not only tolerated but also expected. While a simple tag doesn’t usually interest me, here there were layers of text and imagery that had been assembled over time and then modified by weather, wear, and perhaps later contributors. Eventually, the accidental juxtapositions seem to take on their own lives, as in this vignette featuring a worn dollar bill image of Benjamin Franklin, and oddly anthropomorphic red and white and green shape, bits and pieces of paint, and the underlying old brick wall. And, of course, this is all very temporary — and probably transformed or gone by now.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: photography

Art, Photography, and “Manipulation”

Halal Cart

Funeral No Parking

Ben Is Watching

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