Black and white photograph of a man sitting on a bench and talking on his cell phone in front of the shaded wall of an urban building in San Francisco.
I was wandering through this part of San Francisco, mostly but not only looking for architecture like that of this building, especially with the combination of dark shadows and the fire escape contrasting with the white trim and the bright areas lit by the slanting sunlight. When I saw this fellow happily engaged in his cell phone call, completely oblivious to everything going on in the place where he sits I had to make a photograph.
Black and white photograph of weathered and dilapidated building exterior wall along the Peter Macciarini Steps, San Francisco.
This is another in a small series of photographs I made of the old, weathered buildings along these very steep sidewalk stairs in San Francisco. In this case I decided to go with black and white since it seems to me that the main interest in the image would be the shapes and forms rather than colors. (Though the color images has a certain appeal, too – the colors are very subtle and almost all in the “tan” range except for a bit of reddish brick, a couple of small colorful stickers on the wall, and the nearly gray concrete.)
I had seen other named stairways elsewhere in San Francisco, but was unaware that this one warranted a name. A web site with information on this and other stairways in SF points out that the city has a history of naming some of its ugliest streets and other features for famous people. This one, despite having a kind of gritty urban charm, seems to fit the mold.
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.
A man descends sidewalk steps past dilapidated buildings with exterior duct work in San Francisco, California.
On a day when my wife was rehearsing in SF and my son needed to do some packing in his apartment… I took this as an excuse to take the (very) early train to the City and wander around shooting on the street until mid-afternoon. A started shooting near the Caltrain depot at about7:00 a.m., wandered up the Embarcadero, heading into the North Beach area, backtracking though the less-touristy part of Chinatown, and finally descending (in more ways than one) to the shoreline at Fishermans Wharf and Pier 39 (ugh) before wandering back up near the ferry building to catch BART to meet up with them.
I made this photograph in an area that seems to me to be sort of on the fringes of Chinatown. The first thing that caught my attention as I passed by on a cross street was the crazy bunch of ducts and other stuff attached to the outside of this building. I wandered up the other side of the street to shoot this straight on, and was doing so when this man helpfully wandered through the frame – which was just what I was hoping for.
On another note, last week I saw some impressive photographs by a person who will remain nameless. The images were largely urban/street work, and included some really interesting photographs of people. But as I looked at the work it occurred to me that part of what was catching my attention was that everyone had seemingly been given the same formulaic treatment in post, likely consisting mostly of a Gaussian blur overlay and some strong vignetting. As an experiment – and partly to confirm my suspicions – I took this image through the same process and with about 10 minutes of work had achieve “the look” of and edgy, saturated, and dark-looking image. But I was left in a bit of a bind. On one hand, it seems cheap to apply a formula in this way, especially when it is so straightforward. On the other hand, it does have a certain appeal…
The version I settled on here eschews that bit of work in post and is more of a “straight” photograph of the scene.
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.
Four pink apartment doors with steps and white columns in the Mission District, San Francisco, California.
Walking in an area like the Mission District, I begin to see many things that would otherwise completely escape my notice. Although I’m sure I’ve seen them before, I recently became away of the prevalence of these building entrances with rows of four nearly identical doorways – this must have been some sort of common building design in San Francisco at some point. Here, as is also fairly common, the colors chosen for the paint were a bit unusual.
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.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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