Tag Archives: state

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

Paint on Metal Wall

January 21, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

While wandering around in the DUMBO area of Brooklyn, between a walk in one direction on the Brooklyn Bridge and a walk back in the other direction on the Manhattan Bridge, we walked up some streets under the flyover at the Brooklyn end of the Manhattan Bridge. This is not what you might think of as a “special” area, being beneath a bridge and containing at least some of the expected forms of urban decay. Surprisingly though there were some interesting things to see here – nice light on this day and some urban/street subjects.

As we walked up one narrow street we passed, as I recall it, some storage yards and similar that were fenced off from the roadway and sidewalks. I think this was part of a section of metal fencing along the sidewalk. I remember looking at this very bizarre pattern of colorful paint and wondering how it got there. There were no signs on the wall at this point, but it looked like someone must have spray-painted some objects in front of the wall, and done so more than once and with a wild variety of colors – blue, hot pink, fluorescent green, several shades of hello, orange, black, and more. This accidental art seems to be the result of the creation of something else that was nowhere to be found.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

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

Graffiti on the Roof

January 19, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Grafitti on urban roofs beyond cyclone fence near the Manhattan Bridge, New York City

This is another photograph from our “hiking day” in New York City during our December 2013 visit. It wasn’t quite our plan when the day started, but we ended up walking from our Canal Street Hotel down to the Brooklyn Bridge and across, then around the DUMBO area of Brooklyn, and back across the Manhattan Bridge to the city again. The two bridges are a study in contrasts. Brooklyn Bridge is, of course, a huge tourist destination and walking across it is almost a requirement for New York visitors and others. Even on this very cold – sub freezing – winter day there were thousands of people crossing. The Manhattan Bridge, on the other hand, is a rather lonely place for pedestrians. we had been warned that it is tremendously noisy, since above ground transit trains cross it only feet from the narrow pedestrian walkway.

Probably because it has not been spiffed up to be a tourist attraction, the Manhattan Bridge also has a lot more aesthetic rough edges. The bridge structure seems mostly to be utilitarian steel, trains run constantly and not far from the walkway, and especially at the Manhattan end the bridge passes above some neighborhoods that don’t appear to be exactly upper class. Looking down from the bridge I saw some of the most extensive graffiti I have seen… on the roofs of buildings, where it is only visible from the bridge and not at all from the streets below. Most of the time I make it a rule to not photograph graffiti, but here it was so extensive and so established that it seemed worth it to make a few photographs through the cyclone fence protecting the bridge walkway.

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

Driveway, The Cloisters, Winter

January 16, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The curving driveway at the Cloisters Museum, New York City

We were in New York City during the final week of 2013, visiting family and doing the usual New York things – which, for me, always includes visiting museums and making photographs. We had visited The Cloisters, now part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art but far uptown, on a previous visit – but having not planned very well we arrived on a day when the place was closed! So we only were able to wander around the grounds outside and the surrounding park lands and then down into town below. This time we checked more carefully, and found that not only was it open but that we could use our Metropolitan of Art passes that we used the previous day.

It was a cold day, and when we got off of the long subway ride up from lower Manhattan we were a bit surprised by the wind blowing at Fort Tryon and we didn’t waste too much time in heading over to the museum. I recalled this curving, cobble stone driveway from our previous visit, when we walked up it to get to the front entrance. This time we came from the side and saw it from the top, curving away and toward the barren trees around the museum and cold scene of the city down below the hill in the distance.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Imaginary Landscapes, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Wildlife

Pelicans and Cormorants – Point Lobos

January 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Something a bit different today – I’m bundling three wildlife photographs into a single post. As I queue this message in advance on an early September morning, it appears that I have enough photographs ready for posting to carry me through October! I think I can afford to put three in this post!

All three were made from the same point on a bluff above the Pacific Ocean at Point Lobos, where I had gone – on Labor Day! – primarily to do landscape/seascape photography. It was an interesting and slightly unusual day. Tropical monsoonal moisture had been streaming over the area for a few days, which is not quite a typical pattern in this area, and the morning started out cloudy. Although it was Labor Day, a bit day for travel and tourism, I arrived early enough that things were still quiet.

On a more typical Point Lobos shooting day, at least one without fog, I would likely complete my work and leave by or well before noon. But the broken overcast allowed interesting and filtered light to continue well into the early afternoon, so I stuck around. After shooting in the forest along the north shore – much easier in filtered than in direct light – I decided I would make a loop along the high bluffs on my way back to my car. I came to this spot just as a very large flock of pelicans floated past below, barely skimming the tops of the almost glassy-calm ocean. With filtered top-light and a good vantage point, I decided to put on the long lens and see what might fly by. Here are a couple of photographs of pelicans and cormorants flying right above the water.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: state

Paint on Metal Wall

Graffiti on the Roof

Driveway, The Cloisters, Winter

Pelicans and Cormorants – Point Lobos

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