Tag Archives: print

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Buildings, Lamp Post

August 7, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A lamp-post in front of the Embarcadero Center and Maritime Plaza buildings, San Francisco.

The buildings in this photograph are in the financial district of San Francisco, very close to the Embarcadero, the roadway that travels along the waterfront where all of the old shipping piers are located. The taller building to the left is part of the Embarcadero Center, a major landmark along the waterfront, and the darker building occupying much of the rest of the frame is the Maritime Plaza Building, one that I’m less familiar with. The lamp-post is… a lamp post.

This summer, while my wife has been involved in an ongoing musical event in The City, I’ve been taking advantage of this to spend more time that usual wandering around the downtown area and making photographs. I have a number of general ideas in mind for photographs, but one thread has been to shoot the large forms of these buildings at odd angles, often with fog or bright sky above. Recently I was thinking about some of the factors that attract me to shooting here. One is, obviously, that this is where the large urban downtown closest to me is located – it is an hour drive away and I can get there by public transit in not much more time than that. It occurred to me yesterday that San Francisco is perhaps the most likely place to find “interesting” weather this time of year here in otherwise mostly blue-sky-boring California – between full sun and dense fog, there are a lot of visually interesting conditions to be found here… occasionally all at once!

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Daylily Blossoms

August 6, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Daylily blossoms in the Commemorative Garden at the Gene and Irene Wockner Hospice Center.

This is another photograph of the bed of daylily blooms in the Commemorative Garden at the Wockner Hospice in Kirkland, Washington. I was thinking this morning about why it is that these particular flowers ended up being my main subject during the brief “photo walk” I took through the garden, and I realized that one main reason was that they were in the shade! When I photographed in the late afternoon, much of the garden was in full or partial sun – not great conditions for photographing the forms of flowers. But this area of the garden was shaded behind tall trees, leaving me with much softer light to work with. In addition, both the colors and shapes of these flowers are fascinating, especially here where a group of them ended up all slanting across the frame in much the same way. The flowers are also quite varied. As I understand it, the name “daylily” refers to the short life of the flowers in their prime, as in “they only last a day.” Consequently, while there are many flowers they are at various different stages of development: the small and tightly formed buds, the longer shapes just before they open, the fully opened and most colorful forms, and then various stages of “decay” as they turn beautiful, darker colors and shrivel up.

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

Looking In

August 5, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Almost everyone in a group of people looks into a conservatory courtyard while waiting for it to open.

Apologies for this title, but I did not get the name of the building (perhaps today I’ll do that), “A group of people looking into a courtyard with one guy looking the other way” seemed a bit too long, and I ran out of creativity before posting. I suppose there is the potential here for incorporating some quip about San Francisco “summer” weather as well – on this lovely “summer” afternoon there were high clouds and fog and it was trying to rain! :-)

I had another afternoon to kill wandering around San Francisco yesterday afternoon. My general target was something like street photography, though it also incorporated this little project I have to photograph downtown buildings from odd angles and render the images in black and white. I had been working on the latter and was heading back to where I would have dinner (and running a few minutes late) when I saw this little cluster of people crowded around what looked like the entrance to this glassed in courtyard filled with palm trees and some tables. Any sort of odd little scene like this – quite different from the general rush of people in the downtown area – catches my eye and often seems like it might make a photograph. Here I had the group of people crowded together to work with, along with the classical architecture of the building and courtyard. So I did what I often might do with such a scene: I stopped and quickly made one initial photograph so as not to miss it entirely, and then I remained and watched for something interesting or out-of-place to occur. When the fellow at the right separated himself from the larger group, my first reaction was a bit of frustration that he had broken up the group of people facing away, but in the end he makes the photograph more interesting to me than it would have been otherwise.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Day Lilies, Wockner Hospice Garden

August 4, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Day lilies growing in the Commemorative Garden at the Gene and Irene Wockner Hospice Center, Kirkland, Washington.

Thanks to the several people who have told me that these are almost certainly daylilies. (I originally used two words, “day lilies,” to title this and I’m going to leave the title that way for now.) I’ve also been told that the name reflects the short blooming period of the individual flowers, which might remain in full color for only a “day.” While I did not know the name of the flowers, I certainly could tell that the blooms did not last long. In fact, in this photograph, the buds of incipient flowers are visible above and to the right of the main flower, and one that has already run its course is near the top of the bright red and yellow flower.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: print

Buildings, Lamp Post

Daylily Blossoms

Looking In

Day Lilies, Wockner Hospice Garden

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