Tag Archives: sidewalk

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Walking in Rain

January 28, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Three pedestrians share an umbrella on a rainy New York morning

My recollection is that we had gone to sort of the East Village area on this morning, first to find some pastry and coffee for breakfast at a place we’ve been to before, and then to wander about making some photographs in this urban area on a cool and wet morning. Breakfast and coffee taken care of, we started walking and watching the urban landscape and its human wildlife.

There is, of course, quite a lot to see, and much of it appears and disappears quickly. I rarely have a lot of time to think about a photograph, and quite often I have to move fast, composing on the fly. When this trio walked past I immediately noticed their color palette of basically black and red/pink and thought that there might be a photograph. We were already walking this direction so I quickly made a few exposures of this group of friends or relatives as they walked along, close together and sharing an umbrella on this drizzly morning.

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

Halal Food Cart, Night

January 24, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A sidewalk halal food cart at night, Manhattan

These food carts and lots of other similar versions are all over Manhattan. I know that isn’t news to New Yorkers, but it is a bit impressive to those of us who visit the place. I have yet to eat at one, but my sons tell me that the food isn’t bad.

I photographed this one (obviously!) at night as we wandered around a crowded portion of Fifth Avenue on Christmas Eve, not far from Rockefeller Center and lots of other stuff that drew huge crowds there on this evening. Against that dark background, the wildly lit cart, festooned with colorful signs describing the food and stacked with bottles of soda was surrounded in a cloud of smoke from food preparation.

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Food Sing

January 16, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Food Sing Chinese food take out and eat in, Brooklyn

On our first full day in New York this past December we took the subway to this area of Brooklyn to meet up with one of our sons (and later his fiancé and eventually our other son and his fiancé) and wandered around the area a bit, ending up on the waterfront of the East River in an area that seems to be developing rapidly. (This Californian, being from the San Francisco Bay Area, certainly recognized the familiar signs of rapid expansion and wild real estate price inflation…)

Later we walked back up and away from the water looking for food — by the local clock is was lunch time, but by our jet-lagged internal clocks it seemed like a good opportunity for breakfast. As we walked I, of course, had my little street photography camera out and I photographed this and that subject as we moved along. This corner restaurant intrigued me for a bunch or reasons. Certainly the name, which no doubt has meaning that I can’t quite parse, is suggestive with its references to the practical (food) and the aesthetic (sing). But the colors and shapes of the building also intrigue me — the contrast between the hot yellow and red of the awning, the cool tones of blue, and the bits of drab urban street scene, photographed at a moment that was almost free of people.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Manhattan Sidewalk Scene

January 7, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pedestrians on a Manhattan sidewalk on a cloudy winter morning.

This is one of those street photographs that I probably can’t fully explain to viewers. I’ll try, but it simply may or may not work for you — and it certainly is, at least superficially, not much like my landscape photography. Or is it? When I’m out and about in an urban area, sometimes I start to look beyond the general hubbub of the scene and I began to spot elements that I find fascinating: a particular person, a relationship of colors, light in unexpected places, juxtapositions of people doing things that may be related or unrelated, and transitory moments that are gone as quickly as they appear.

When I’m in this mode of seeing I often stop and watch the scene, waiting for something to happen. I don’t know in advance quite what it will be, but I know that the potential is there. (This, in fact, is one similarity to photographing the natural world, where more things than you might imagine are the result of simply being there at the right time and watching.) Here something about the front of this building caught my attention, and there was a steady stream of people passing by. (Of course there was — this is Manhattan!) At the moment of this exposure a bunch of things happened — somehow there are two strollers in the scene. Several people are engrossed by their smartphones. The woman at the far right is in a surprising and somewhat contorted position, and everything seems to have stopped in some sort of tableau.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sidewalk

Halal Food Cart, Night

Food Sing

Manhattan Sidewalk Scene

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