Tag Archives: san francisco

Photographs: San Francisco

Museum Layers

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Museum Layers
A somewhat whimsical view of the interior of San Francisco MOMA through a portal

Museum Layers. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A somewhat whimsical view of the interior of San Francisco MOMA through a portal

When I visit museums I often bring a camera along. I’m not too likely to photograph the art — though that does occasionally happen, most often when someone is interacting with it. I’m more  interested in the light and architecture of such places and with the activities of museum visitors, who tend to behave in different ways than they might in other locations.

This photograph is about the architecture, of course, and how it is lit.  quite simply, the portal (outlined in black) was my initial subject, but then I saw the fantastic landscape of light gradients and contrasting colors. The two figures in the nearly central light circle were a matter of serendipity.

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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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Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Through the Scrim

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Through the Scrim
An urban scene viewed through a scrim

Through the Scrim. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An urban scene viewed through a scrim

This is intended to be a sort of playful photograph, though I think it might be read as having a bit of an ominous quality, too, depending upon how you look at it.

I made the photograph from inside the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). We are members of the museum and we go there regularly — partly to see the collection and the temporary exhibits, and partly to photograph the architecture, the people, and the urban environment surrounding the building. I made the photograph through a sort of scrim that was covering some windows, presumably to mute the outside light a bit. It was rainy, and a bit of water is running on the fabric of the scrim, and the overall effect is to mute contrast and detail in the urban scene outside the window.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Pedestrian With Bucket

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Pedestrian With Bucket
Two men walking, one with safety vest and bucket

Pedestrian With Bucket. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two men walking, one with safety vest and bucket

I share this in my ongoing effort to perplex those who like my landscape photography… but aren’t so sure about the other stuff! Don’t worry, my intentions are entirely positive. I’ll remain a bit circumspect, but not entirely so. I like photographing urban scenes for a bunch of reasons, ranging from aesthetic to practical. On the practical side, they are often much more accessible — I can literally step out my front door and make photographs or perhaps find them at the end of a one-hour train ridge. They also challenge me to see in ways that are not in my native comfort zone, and they hone my ability to see quickly… which is a good thing. On the aesthetic side, if you know much about the history of photography and photographers, it is obvious that good work can be done in these places.

As to what is going on in this photograph, you shouldn’t view it though the lens of landscape photography. Well, OK, perhaps you could do that. This is a kind of landscape. It even includes some native “wildlife.” When you look at photographs of natural landscape, you probably look beyond the pure “beauty” of place and subject to consider the abstractions of from and color and implied motion and so forth. It might be worth trying the same thing with other subjects!

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Pedestrians, Slanted Street

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Pedestrians, Slanted Street
Pedestrians walk past mailboxes on a slanted San Francisco street

Pedestrians, Slanted Street. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Pedestrians walk past mailboxes on a slanted San Francisco street

A scene like this could probably be distressing to OCD photographers who (like me!) often like to have things line up on logical ways. Or it can be pleasure for someone (also like me!) who loves contemplating perspective and other types of visual dissonance. I actually played around with this, seeing what would happen if I used post-processing techniques to align the image with various potential vertical or horizontal references… and there isn’t one that actually works and leaves the other references also all correct!

This sort of scene is pretty typical in San Francisco. I don’t know the people in the scene, but their appearance is congruent with that of the new inhabitants of San Francisco: tech workers, finance workers, and others who support them. (I believe we can even see the ubiquitous paper coffee cup in the hands of one of the figures.) The scene is typical in other ways as well, including the standing street and the buildings aligned to the gravitational horizontal, and ignoring the actual slanting terrain in order to get there.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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 | LinkedIn | Email

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