Tag Archives: sidewalk

Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: People, Photographs: Urban/Street

Beecher’s

September 25, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Seattle street scene

I made this photograph on a recent visit of several days to the Seattle, Washington area. Much of this visit was not photographically oriented, but I did have a couple of days that I could devote to photography. Seattle has a particular character that I enjoy — to generalize, it is partly about the light and weather, partly about the nature of the city itself, and partly about the people. The light is softer and lower angled than what I’m used to in California. The “nature” of the city is a bit hard to explain — though it has both the woodsy quality of being built-in forest as another quality that is shared with San Francisco and its older buildings. There is something, again to generalize, about the people as well. Perhaps more beards and more informal and slightly outdoorsy clothing?

I made this photograph in the Pike Place area, and I just happened to notice the little tableau of people, buildings, and colorful bicycles and other elements as I walked by. If the photograph is about anything, that anything might include the contrasting square shapes of the building and the angled lines of the road and sidewalk, plus something about the positioning of the people. It is also about color, from the yellow line to the colorful elements sprinkled throughout the frame.

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Urban Geometry

August 29, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A study in shapes, colors, and textures, Manhattan

When I photograph urban/street subjects I am usually looking for quite a range of different things: individual people doing interesting things, masses of people, odd little vignettes, color and line, and sometimes the urban landscape itself. It is, I think, possible to regard the city as a kind of landscape, and even to photograph it in ways that are similar but perhaps not identical to how we photograph the so-called natural landscape.

On this day I was on foot (hiking?) through Manhattan, on my way to meet people, when we passed through the area around Washington Square. The stark and angular architecture of this bit of a building caught my attention, and some of the colors and textures brought to mind a sort of idealized representation of the red rock canyons of the Southwest.

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

Caffe Roma

July 13, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A street scene next to Caffe Roma, Little Italy, Manhattan

On the final evening of our recent week in New York City we headed back to the hotel. It is typical near the end of a such a trip to have a sense of things winding down. But I found time to make one more circuit of the surrounding streets of Little Italy and the edge of Chinatown to do a bit of night street photography.

I moved fairly quickly, and often made quick photographs while on the move, especially when people were the subject and they were not standing still. However, in a few places the buildings and the overall environment caught my attention and I paused for a moment to frame an urban landscape and then to wait for passers-by to populate it. This wall was quite a sight, with its huge and brightly lit painted sign, the red color of the wall itself, the light spilling onto the sidewalk, and the large painting of the woman at the far right. At this moment three groups of people coalesced: the trio interacting at the right, the two in the center who are lit by one of their smartphones, and the two unrelated figures at the far left near the bicycles.

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

Gelato King

July 12, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Late-night passers-by at the Gelato King stand, corner of Mulberry and Grand, NYC

Another gelato stand! It seems that this is becoming a theme here. Of course, given that we were staying in a hotel located essentially on the border between Manhattan’s Chinatown and Little Italy districts, these kinds of places were everywhere: Italian deli on the corner, Italian pastry across the street, gelato and cannoli never more than a few footsteps away. (The fact that we were staying in this particular area was more a function of a good price on a hotel than of a desire to be in the middle to the tourist attractions of Little Italy.)

This photograph, if nothing else, illustrates a few things that I look for when photographing urban areas at night, at least when working with subjects like this one. It has a central focus point, and one that seems to provide most of the interesting light in the scene — namely the little gelato stand, with its light (and that of the cannoli stand just around the corner) spilling out onto the sidewalk and providing much of the illumination in the scene. (Additional ambient illumination from other businesses provides a bit of light on the figures.) I made a series of photographs here in rapid succession as people walked through the scene. In some there is no one but the fellow in the stand, in others a group is queued up to buy gelato. In this one the people are almost uniformly spread across the scene, with various orientations to the central light. On both sides women in lighter colors walk toward it; red and yellow tones show up in the attire of several of the subjects.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sidewalk

Beecher’s

Urban Geometry

Caffe Roma

Gelato King

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