Tag Archives: sidewalk

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Noodle Shop

December 1, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A single nighttime diner in a Manhattan noodle shop on a dark street

I suppose it is because I plan to be there again soon, but I’ve been going back through some earlier photographs from New York City this week, and especially focusing on photographs I made at night there last July. While staying in a busy part of the city (yeah, I know, all the parts are busy…) where there are lots of small business and lots of people I managed to get out frequently and wander with my camera. Most of the neighborhood tended to be quite crowded and busy, with lots of light. However, a few of the side streets included quieter spots where there were no crowds, especially late at night, including this street where there was only one person still eating in this noodle shop.

With photographs like this, especially when rendered in black and white, there is a lot of creative latitude when it comes to deciding how to interpret the scene. I’m generally not a big fan — with some exceptions — of allowing highlights to completely blow out, so the brightly lit areas set a sort of limit on how light I can go. I want to see at least some detail in almost all areas of the photograph, even in the deep shadows, so I often have to do some careful work during the post processing stages to get what I want from these dark area. It is tricky — too dark and all detail is lost, but too light and the shadows end up gray and the mystery is gone. In this photograph I wanted most of the image to feel very dark, with only the three brightly lit areas standing out.

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Gelato Stand, Evening

November 30, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

People stop at a Little Italy gelato stand on a summer evening, Manhattan

Near the end of the year it is my custom to start going back to my raw file archives from the previous year, looking for photographs that I might have overlooked initially. Sometimes I missed them because I was working on other things that caught my attention at the time. In other cases there were simply a lot of photographs, and I moved on to other work before finishing with an earlier set of photographs. I’m starting that project now, so you are likely to see some older work mixed in with more recent photographs over the next few weeks.

We spent a week in New York City in July. (Yes, I know that smart people don’t go to New York during the hot and humid summer months. But I do. Draw your own conclusions… ;-) This time we stayed in the general area of Little Italy. That area is a bit of a tourist place, but it is also an interesting place to wander at night. There are lots of light, lots of shops, and lots of people out and about. On this evening I headed out from the hotel just after dark and did a quick loop through the neighborhood with my camera. Here a group of people lines up at a small gelato stand, while someone shops next door and nearby people sit on benches along the sidewalk.

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

Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Urban/Street

Easy Joe’s

November 18, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Street scene with pedestrians, Seattle

Today I’m going to insert one more street photograph into what has largely been a recent stream of natural world photographs. (I suppose that focus should not be a surprise during the fall season!) Back in September I was in the Seattle area of several days, mostly on non-photographic business, but I managed to get out and spend some time photographing, too. One day I made it to the North Cascades for a bit of landscape photography, and on another I sneaked out for a few hours of street photography.

I actually have no idea what Easy Joe’s is (or who Easy Joe is or was), but since the text appears in the scene I am going with it. For some reason, this photograph feels like Seattle to me — something about the architecture, perhaps, or the light or possibly I just recognize the downtown location. It also presented a sort of urban geometry that I enjoy, with tons of vertical and horizontal forms, but broken up by the passage of a compact group of pedestrians.

Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Urban/Street

A Shadow

September 28, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A shadow falls across a Seattle sidewalk and roll-up door

In early September I had the opportunity to spend several days in the Seattle area. I was actually there on a sort of business — not photography related — but I did have enough spare time that I could do some photography, too. It turned out that I had two opportunities. On nearly the last time of the trip I managed the long drive to the North Cascades, where I photographed in the Mount Shuksan and Artist Point area for an afternoon. Before that I managed to head to downtown Seattle for a bout of street photography. This photograph comes from that visit.

When I do street photography I work in ways that are both related to my landscape photography and also different. In both cases I tend to only select general subjects ahead of time, preferring to head out and explore and see what I can find. In both cases I am looking not just for “depictions” of the subjects, but also for bits of visually interesting material that might stand on their own outside of the specific location context. Of course, I use different equipment — for street I leave the tripod behind and I work with a small camera, typically using one or two small prime lenses. As I walk, often slowly, I am attentive to what is around me. I am discrete with the camera, only lifting it in front of me when I make a photograph. I often spot something, make the photograph, and move on quickly. (Not always, though. Some subjects demand more patience or are worth a careful exploration.) I may photograph people, architecture, or fragments of the scene. This is one of those fragments, an odd shadow falling across the slightly warped geometry of the metal roll-up door, and offset by the tilting sidewalk below.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sidewalk

Noodle Shop

Gelato Stand, Evening

Easy Joe’s

A Shadow

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.