Tag Archives: skyscraper

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Urban Canyons, Evening

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Urban Canyons, Evening - An urban landscape photograph in evening light, downtown San Francisco.
An urban landscape photographed in evening light, downtown San Francisco.

Urban Canyons, Evening. San Francisco, California. July 9, 2012. @ Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An urban landscape photographed in evening light, downtown San Francisco.

I spent a couple of days in downtown San Francisco earlier this month, with opportunities to photograph early and late in the day. Late in the afternoon I headed out and down Market street, starting out in less that amazing light but anticipating that things would certainly become more interesting as the evening wore on. On this particular walk I mostly headed to places that I already knew from many previous visits. I have often looked at this building and thought that it held to potential for a photograph that wasn’t just a “shot of the building,” but so far I had not actually come up with on. As I walked along the east side of the structure I saw that the very bright early evening sun was streaming across and between other tall buildings to the west and then past and through the columns in the left side of the frame. I positioned myself so that one of the columns just blocked the direct sun to make this photograph.

While I am perhaps mainly oriented to landscapes, both small and large, in my photography, I really enjoy shooting urban subjects as well. In some ways the experiences are very different – obviously the hustle and bustle of a major metropolitan downtown area feels a lot different from the quiet and solitude of the mountains, desert, or shoreline. But I respond to many of the same things in both places – juxtapositions of shapes, textures, and most important, the light. In the latter context, this photograph is not all that different from, say, one that features light flowing over the peaks of a Sierra ridge and down a canyon to pass between the trunks of trees. It is, after all, the same light.

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.
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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: Abstract, Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Reflective Building

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Reflective Building - Reflections in the windows of a downtown tower, San Francisco
Reflections in the windows of a downtown tower, San Francisco

Reflective Building. San Francisco, California. July 9, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Reflections in the windows of a downtown tower, San Francisco.

I photographed the exterior of this building while walking in the financial district of San Francisco in the early evening. I was mainly shooting street subjects with a 50mm prime, but fortunately I had a telephoto zoom in my bag that I could use to isolate this section of the building from its surrounding context. In addition, I decided to take some liberties with the image in post, including some serious perspective adjustments that brought the vertical lines into nearly parallel alignment.

When walking around in an urban environment like this one, it is easy to focus on the grit and “reality” and noise and all the rest. But if you look past that you can find some astonishing images in this environment, some of which are quite abstract and perhaps border on hallucinations. This is a building – that is fairly obvious. But what in this photograph is actually the building? Not much. The thin, darker vertical lines are the frames around the window glass, as are the even thinner diagonal lines running upward from left to right. If you look closely you can see a few bits and pieces of what is inside the building, mostly in the form of interior lighting. But the main portion of the image is not really the building at all, instead consisting of warped and distorted forms that are the reflections of its surroundings, reflected in its glass surface.

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.
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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: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Embarcadero Center Tower

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Embarcadero Plaza Tower - Black and white rendition of Embarcadero Plaza Tower, San Francisco.
Black and white rendition of Embarcadero Plaza Tower, San Francisco.

Embarcadero Center Tower. San Francisco, California. July 9, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white rendition of Embarcadero Plaza Tower, San Francisco.

This may be a bit of a rude shock after all of the recent nature images, but here we go. I made this photograph in early July while spending a couple days in San Francisco. On the first afternoon I went out armed primarily with a, uh, 50mm prime, and I found myself interested in photographing the tall downtown buildings from very close up and with somewhat steep upward angles so that I could accentuate the converging perspective lines. (Some of the others in this series will be significantly abstract interpretations of these subjects.)

I made this while walking “through” the row of Embarcadero Center buildings. It was quite close to sunset, so the shadows were beginning to fill a bit more with light than they would during the middle of the day, when the light and shadows are more harsh. However, since I was shooting in shadows and low light, I ended up hand holding the camera at a fairly low shutter speed since I need a relatively small aperture for depth of field, especially since I decided to let the two overhead support beams intrude into the space of the taller building. This image was also the result of some significant work in the post-processing stage, including the application of a blue filter layer (to get the sky to blow out to white) and a blurred overlay layer.

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Juxtaposed Buildings With Shadows and Reflections

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Juxtaposed Buildings With Shadows and Reflections
Juxtaposed Buildings With Shadows and Reflections

Juxtaposed Buildings With Shadows and Reflections. San Francisco, California. July 8, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The overlapping structures of downtown buildings covered with reflections and shadows, San Francisco.

I made this photograph while walking up Market Street in San Francisco on this early July morning, dodging fast-walking pedestrians and bunches of tourists. I wasn’t certain of what I would shoot here on this day, and I was actually equipped more for shooting street level scenes than this sort of thing, in that I was traveling light with only a few basic prime lenses. But when I visit here, I’m almost always fascinated by the juxtapositions of different types of architecture, patterns of shadows and reflected light, the effect of perspective when looking up from the street, and the odd similarities to some of the rugged landscapes that I also like to photograph.

I’m not good about paying attention to the identity of the buildings, so while I could certainly locate them again quickly I’m afraid I can’t name them! I’ve photographed both before, and I was already very aware of the reflection patterns that appear in the windows of the darker building on the left, creating a criss-cross pattern against the lines of its own windows. There are more subtle effects of light on the lighter surface of the building on the right. Reflections from windows above and to the right cast diagonal lines of faint light down and across this part of the building, and below that there is a faint pattern of darker lines which are shadows from the light reflecting through the horizontal structure at the far right margin. (Being a fan of such things, I also like the fact that this open structure creates dark shadow patterns beyond and to its right and lighter shadow patterns across the whole face of the building. Yet other buildings are reflected, slightly distorted, in the large windows set in the bright wall.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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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.