Tag Archives: reflections

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Storefronts, Reflections

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Storefronts, Reflections
Sidewalk shops and window reflections, San Francisco

Storefronts, Reflections. San Francisco, California. May 20. 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

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.

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: France, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Cafe Le Chinon, Night

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Cafe Le Chinon, Night
Evening lights reflect on cobblestone street at the Cafe Le Chinon in Montmartre, Paris

Cafe Le Chinon, Night. Paris, France. August 11, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening lights reflect on cobblestone street at the Cafe Le Chinon in Montmartre, Paris

Readers will have to give me a bit of slack for continuing to remark about things in Paris that are likely more obvious and mundane to people who know the city better than I. However, this was — believe it or not! — our first visit, so many things were new to us. Among the new (and wonderful!) things were the many cafes, with tables spilling out onto the sidewalks.

We stayed in a hotel in Montmartre, at the recommendation of our oldest son and our daughter-in-law, who had stayed in the area when they visited not long ago. Other than that, we didn’t know all that much about the area, besides some vague knowledge that it is sort of “artsy” (by long tradition) and that the famous Moulin Rouge is located nearby on a slightly seedy street. By the time I made this photograph we had been in Paris for some time, and we had learned to love the idea of wandering out late at night to pick a restaurant, and then to sit there slowly enjoying a meal, wine, and then coffee as the world walks by.

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

Patio, Reflections

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Patio, Reflections
Reflections in the window of an outdoor patio area at SFMOMA

Patio, Reflections. San Francisco, California. May 6, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Reflections in the window of an outdoor patio area at SFMOMA

This is (yet another!) photograph from our pre-opening visit to the newly updated and expanded SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art). The museum has been closed for something like two years while major construction was ongoing, and many have been waiting with a sense of expectation for the reopening, which took place in mid-May of this year.

It was a beautifully gray and wet day in San Francisco, with soft and gentle light. Several times I went outside onto the various patios and balconies that open from the museum to the surrounding urban San Francisco landscape, and the artificial structure produced by the expanses of reflecting glass became a subject. The extend and amplify open and lighted spaces, and make them seem to appear where big and solid building structures actually exist.

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: Architecture, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Reflections, Shadows, Bridge, and Sky

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Reflections, Shadows, Bridge, and Sky
Industrial buildings covered with shadows and reflections, clouds moving across the night sky.

Reflections, Shadows, Bridge, and Sky. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. November 7, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Industrial buildings covered with shadows and reflections, clouds moving across the night sky.

On my recent nighttime visit to the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, where I again made night photographs with a group of like-minded photographers, I decided to forego some of the more familiar subjects and instead poke around in some dark corners of the place. I began by spending nearly an hour photograph an odd little area of concrete structures at the base of a long stairway, and once I finished there it only seemed right to walk up those stairs and find out where they led. This took me to what seemed like an old parking area behind some abandoned buildings — though it is sometimes hard to tell in the inky darkness. I could tell that there was a lot of debris in this lot, so I stepped around it carefully as I explored this blocky building that was painted by light and shadow from its surroundings in interesting ways.

Much of this light was virtually invisible to me, but it is a combination of light from close and far artificial light sources, the shadows of trees and other structures, and the well-defined shapes of windows through which more distant light shines. Overhead there is a covered walkway between larger buildings, and the darker form of one of them is visible at the lower left. Clouds were moving across the sky, and their shapes blurred during the long exposure.

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.