Tag Archives: seattle

Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Fallen Leaves

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Fallen Leaves
Fallen Leaves

Fallen Leaves. Seattle, Washington. August 14, 2013.© Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Fallen leaves on a grate along a Seattle downtown sidewalk

August 14 was a day off during the Seattle Opera “Ring” cycle – a series of four Wagner operas performed over a six-day period. For those who may not know, attending a full production of the Ring is almost a full-time occupation for the better part of a week. This may sound unbelievable to those who cannot imagine such a thing, but the four operas range from as short as about 2 1/2 hours up to well beyond five hours for the last one, Götterdämmerung – and once you start to “get it” and buy into the whole story, the music, and everything that goes with a production of this thing, well you’ll understand. In any case, on this first of two free days we had during the performances we decided to keep it simple and just head to downtown Seattle to walk around and see what we could photograph.

We took a fairly free-form approach to the shoot, starting near Pike Place Market where we knew we could get some coffee and then photographing people and stuff in and around the Market. We finished there and headed south through downtown, with no particular goal in mind. Eventually we got as far as the Art Wolfe Gallery, where we looked around a bit before heading north again. These street shoots are a lot of fun. I often shoot quickly, using a small camera and almost always just a prime, and I forego the usual tripod and gobs of heavy equipment. Subjects can range from people to buildings to little bits and pieces of urban detritus, and they frequently appear and are gone quickly. Something about this conjunction of lines and textures caught my attention, along with the faintly mossy green tint and the bit of accidental nature in the form of the leaves that had fallen on the metal grate.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Urban/Street

Trance Entrance

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Trance Entrance
Trance Entrance

Trance Entrance. Seattle, Washington. August 14, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A sign with multiple potential meanings, Pike Place Market

There are so many possible bad puns that could be made about the sign in this photograph, especially considering the city in which it was made and other things that were going on in town at that time. I’ll refrain.

On a free day during a recent trip to Seattle we decided to wander around downtown Seattle and do mostly street photography. We started out near Pike Place Market, where there are abundant opportunities to find not only the coffee and food we were seeking, but also lots of interesting “Seattlish” photographic opportunities. As we walked past an entrancing entrance to the Market, I looked up to see some wildly colorful flowers (not that you can tell here!) growing along the edge of the roof and partially hanging over the sign.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist 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.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Aurora Bridge, Seattle

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Tower and steel structures beneath the Aurora Bridge, Seattle, Washington
Aurora Bridge, Seattle – Tower and steel structures beneath the Aurora Bridge, Seattle, Washington

Aurora Bridge, Seattle. Seattle, Washington. May 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Tower and steel structures beneath the Aurora Bridge, Seattle, Washington.

In early May I was briefly in Seattle on personal business, and I found myself with a free couple of hours that coincided with a Seattle Photo Walk in the Fremont district – so I left my other business behind, grabbed camera and a couple primes, and headed to the meet-up at the statue of Lenin. Really – it is a long story. ;-)

For those who don’t know, there is a waterfront along the edge of Fremont – the waterway connecting Lake Washington to the Puget Sound by way of the Ballard Locks. North of the water is a more hilly area, and Aurora Avenue crosses from there heading south over the water by way of the Aurora Bridge, which stands high above the water and above Fremont. Almost as soon as I started my “photo walk” in Fremont, I knew that I wanted to wander on over towards the bridge to see what I could find. It turns out that there is a recreational trail that passes alongside and under the bridge, so I walked down that way and made a series of handheld photographs from underneath this impressive structure.

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.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Windows, Ramp, and Asphalt

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Windows, Ramp, and Asphalt - The side of a metal building with windows reflecting an asphalt parking area with painted lines, Seattle, Washington
The side of a metal building with windows reflecting an asphalt parking area with painted lines, Seattle, Washington. The side of a metal building with windows reflecting an asphalt parking area with painted lines, Seattle, Washington

Windows, Ramp, and Asphalt. Seattle, Washington. May 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The side of a metal building with windows reflecting an asphalt parking area with painted lines, Seattle, Washington.

This is the third in the short series of urban geometry photographs from my early May visit to Seattle, on which I had an hour (only an hour!) to photograph in the Fremont District with a group on a Seattle Photo Walk. After starting in “downtown” Fremont, meeting up at the Lenin statue, wandering over beneath the Aurora Bridge, and walking back along the waterfront, I climbed the stairs to another bridge that took me back toward my starting point.

This bridge turned out to be an interesting subject and vantage point. I made a few photographs of the bridge itself, mostly focusing on details, but for the most part those did not end up being images that I’ll share. However, once I got up on the bridge and started to walk across it, the vantage point it provide across the tops of buildings and down into areas below was interesting. The subject of this photograph is probably some of the most banal looking office space around, especially since I narrowed the composition down to simply showing a wall, some windows, a bit of concrete, the shadow of the bridge on which I was standing, and a painted out section of an asphalt parking area. It is what it is, and you get to figure out what that might be! :-)

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.