Tag Archives: reflections

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

Embarcadero Center Tower

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Embarcadero Plaza Tower - Black and white rendition of Embarcadero Plaza Tower, San Francisco.
Black and white rendition of Embarcadero Plaza Tower, San Francisco.

Embarcadero Center Tower. San Francisco, California. July 9, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white rendition of Embarcadero Plaza Tower, San Francisco.

This may be a bit of a rude shock after all of the recent nature images, but here we go. I made this photograph in early July while spending a couple days in San Francisco. On the first afternoon I went out armed primarily with a, uh, 50mm prime, and I found myself interested in photographing the tall downtown buildings from very close up and with somewhat steep upward angles so that I could accentuate the converging perspective lines. (Some of the others in this series will be significantly abstract interpretations of these subjects.)

I made this while walking “through” the row of Embarcadero Center buildings. It was quite close to sunset, so the shadows were beginning to fill a bit more with light than they would during the middle of the day, when the light and shadows are more harsh. However, since I was shooting in shadows and low light, I ended up hand holding the camera at a fairly low shutter speed since I need a relatively small aperture for depth of field, especially since I decided to let the two overhead support beams intrude into the space of the taller building. This image was also the result of some significant work in the post-processing stage, including the application of a blue filter layer (to get the sky to blow out to white) and a blurred overlay layer.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Two Bushes , San Francisco Home

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San Francisco Photograph - Two bushes grow along the sidewalk in front of an urban San Francisco home.
Two bushes grow along the sidewalk in front of an urban San Francisco home.

Two Bushes, San Francisco Home. San Francisco, California. July 15, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two bushes grow along the sidewalk in front of an urban San Francisco home.

I can’t say with certainly just where in San Francisco I photographed this building, though I think it may have been in the North Beach neighborhood. To me it seemed like a superficially very simply building that turns out to be a lot more complex, and a just plain interesting example of a lot of surprising juxtapositions of shape and color.

Everything initially seems almost boringly “square” – the shapes on the garage door, the sections of the sidewalk in front of the garage, the abrupt and jutting shape of the upper story extension that leans out over the front entrance and the garage, the odd little window at the upper left, and the two symmetrically placed bushes in front of the garage and the front door. But with a little bit closer look, certain things seem to be off just a bit. Someone must have faced a difficult decision when the bushes grew too tall – whether to chop off the top of the one on the right and maintain the symmetry, or to instead let that one drop, throwing off the even balance – and doesn’t the one on the left sort of seem like the unruly brother of the one on the right?

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: People, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Bicycle Rider, Brick Wall

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Bicycle Rider, Brick Wall - A bicycle rider in orange rides past a brick wall, Seattle, Washington
A bicycle rider in orange rides past a brick wall, Seattle, Washington

Bicycle Rider, Brick Wall. Seattle, Washington. May 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A bicycle rider in orange rides past a brick wall, Seattle, Washington.

This is going to be the first in a small series of photographs from Seattle, Washington that focus on what might be described as urban geometry – odd or interesting juxtapositions of shapes and colors and so forth. I made this photograph back in early May when I joined a group of Seattle photographers for a “Seattle Photo Walk” in the Fremont District. I had only an hour to shoot, but I managed to work intensely for that hour and come back with some stuff that is interesting to me in one way or another.

One thing that I enjoy about photographing the urban environment is that potential subjects come and go almost constantly and often last only for a brief instant. I have to react so fast that I certainly cannot see everything in the frame in a conscious way while making the photograph, though there is something to be said for perhaps have an intuitive understanding of what is there. When I made this photograph I was walking along a bridge the heads back into Seattle’s Fremont district. I had been looking at these brick buildings which feign being old – they are actually new but with old-looking brick walls. The geometry of the buildings attracted me, but I hadn’t really seen a photograph in them at this point. Then, as I looked, I saw the cyclist coming along wearing this very bright orange shirt and helmet and wearing an orange pack. I quickly framed up a composition that included the building, the walkway, and a portion of the road and then waited for the rider to enter the frame. As he passed through I quickly squeezed off three frames. In two of them, a car obscures the cyclist, but in the final one, taken just before he exited the frame, he is all alone against the patterns of the road and the building. (I didn’t notice until later the windows reflected in the middle row of windows on the building.)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Shoreline Rocks, Sierra Nevada

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Shoreline Rocks, Sierra Nevada
Shoreline Rocks, Sierra Nevada

Shoreline Rocks, Sierra Nevada. Yosemite National Park, California. September 17, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Small plants grow on rocks near the shoreline of a sub-alpine Sierra Nevada Lake, Yosemite National Park.

Little gardens grow in these jumbles of rocks and boulders near the outlet stream of this sub-alpine lake where I spent nearly four days this past September. During this mid-September time frame the colors of the high country autumn are beginning to appear, as seen in the orange and brown colors of some of the leaves on the plants among the rocks.

I arrived at this lake late in the day, the rest of my party having arrived there earlier. They had the advantage of a pack train to carry most of their gear up here, but I was self-contained and schlepping the whole mess of backpacking and photography gear myself. I was beat when I arrived, and I first thought that I might just write off doing any photography that evening and just rest up and recuperate. But I started to feel a bit guilty about my laziness in the evening, and I went for a walk around the outlet stream of the nearby creek and made a few photographs in the soft evening light.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.