Tag Archives: purple

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Purple, Green, Blue, And Red

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Purple, Green, Blue, And Red
Objects along the sidewalk, San Francisco

Purple, Green, Blue, And Red. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Objects along the sidewalk, San Francisco.

Given its title, it should be obvious that this photograph is, at least in part, about the colors I found in this little downtown San Francisco scene. The specific location probably isn’t too important, though it is a central city area that is not one of great wealth and privilege, but which is perhaps under some pressure from the developmental forces currently bringing radical changes to the qualities that made this city famous.

Sometimes I just make photographs without analyzing too much, and you could look at a photograph like this in much the same way. But sometimes I do ask myself questions, such as “Why would I want to photograph something like this?” The answer is too complex for a two-paragraph web post — and I’m not sure that I know the complete answer — but I do know that I’m looking for order relationships among things that might not be objectively related. (Here those elements include the conjunctions of color and objects.) I’m also, I think, trying to see things for “what else they might be.”

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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Wildflowers, Central California Hills

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Wildflowers, Central California Hills
Spring wildflower bloom in San Luis Obispo County, California

Wildflowers, Central California Hills. Carrizo Plain National Monument, California. April 2, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Spring wildflower bloom in San Luis Obispo County, California

Our evening hike to photograph the flowers began with a drive. We left our campsite, picked up a gravel cross-valley road, followed another narrower gravel road, and finally turned up a one-lane track heading up into the hills. Before long it dead-ended at a gate with an opening that only allowed foot traffic beyond. We loaded up, decided to forego the main trail, dropped into a gully, climbed a slope on the other side, and then followed a ridge up into the hills.

As we climbed the flowers, of all sorts, became thicker and thicker, and before long we were “wading” through fields of them, sometimes up to our hips, as we headed toward some likely looking slopes even higher up. Finally arriving at what seemed like the likely place to start photographing, there was a flat plateau along the ridge, and flowers carpeted sections of it. To make this photograph I positioned myself so that the main field of flowers was directly in front of my, with the further layered ridges extending beyond and further up into the hills.

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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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Photographs: Night, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Support Columns, Purple and Green Wall

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Support Columns, Purple and Green Wall
Support Columns, Purple and Green Wall

Support Columns, Purple and Green Wall. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. March 11, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Night photograph of dilapidated building in green and purple, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.

In contrast to the huge and somewhat garishly lit iconic towers and cranes of Mare Island, there are innumerable little quiet and hidden subjects to photograph. I think that most of us start with the obvious subjects and eventually, after shooting them many times, begin to look for these other possibilities. I photographed this in very low light, complicated by a bit of wind, and I could barely see the subject as I worked. (In order to focus I had to shine a small light on the edge of part of the structure.)

The colors were almost a bit of a surprise. At Mare Island there (or, in too many cases used to be, now that the lighting has been “modernized”) a wild variation in lighting types. There is often the moonlight. A glow comes across the water from Vallejo. Sodium vapor lamps can produce a sort of sickly yellow color. Tungsten light is warm colored, and fluorescent light can be very strange. As a consequence, the colors of this nighttime world are more about the colors of the lighting than the colors of the subjects themselves. The side of this building, which is probably quite drab in daylight, picked up subtle green and purple tones under the artificial light.

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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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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

A Purple Mask

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A Purple Mask
People gather outside a store at night.

A Purple Mask. San Francisco, California. July 25 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People gather outside a store at night.

A purple mask, eh? You may need to look closely at this small web version of the photograph, but if you do you may see that one of the people in the scene is carrying a furry purple mask. Don’t ask. I didn’t.

I’ll keep the commentary on this one to a minimum since I have already written a few times about the circumstances of such photographs. I made it on a summer afternoon and night walk through sections of downtown San Francisco. Here I was wandering slowly along Grant, the main tourist street of the city’s Chinatown district. By this time at night the crowds had diminished quite a bit, but most shops were still open. With fewer people on the street, there were better opportunities to find compositions that were less cluttered.

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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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