Tag Archives: steel

Brick Walls, Roofs, Orange Paint

Brick Walls, Roofs, Orange Paint
Brick Walls, Roofs, Orange Paint

Brick Walls, Roofs, Orange Paint. New York, New York. August 24, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A section of brick wall above old roofs is painted bright orange, Chelsea, New York City.

This photograph was made from the High Line Elevated Park in morning light. If you like the textures and colors and machinery and forms of dense and old urban structures, there is a lot to see and photograph from the High Line. I made a photograph of the same under-construction area in the far right of this frame (not completely visible) a year ago, but that was at a very different time of the day. On this morning, the odd patch of bright orange paint on the brick wall (and the smaller bit around the door frame) got my attention, so I leaned as far as I could toward the edge of the walkway and made a photograph unobstructed by the guard rail.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Old Brick Building and Remnants of the High Line

Old Brick Building and Remnants of the High Line
Old Brick Building and Remnants of the High Line

Old Brick Building and Remnants of the High Line. New York, New York. August 24, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Remnants of the old right-of-way of the High Line Railway run in front of and old and run-down brick building, New York City.

There is, no doubt, a lot of history in this scene that I’m unaware of – but the visual elements mostly caught my attention as we walked past this spot. On the final morning of our August 2011 visit to New York, we were walking from West Village to Chelsea when we passed this area. My son, who lives in Brooklyn and is obsessed (in the good way!) with walking around lots of areas of New York City and making photographs and noting what he sees, first pointed out the terrace in the lower part of the scene (bounded by the railing) and the steel structure at the lower left. He told me that this was part of the High Line Railroad that used to run through this part of Manhattan. A more famous section of the High Line has become a very popular “elevated park” in Chelsea, but in this area it is pretty much just abandoned and, in places, gone.

I don’t know what the tall and worn-looking brick building is, but I’d sure like to know. My hunch, given the appearance of a former white paint job and the proximity to the railroad tracks, is that it must have been some sort of industrial building at some point.

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.

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Bridge, Olympic Sculpture Park

Bridge, Olympic Sculpture Park
Bridge, Olympic Sculpture Park

Bridge, Olympic Sculpture Park. Seattle, Washington. January 1, 2008. © Copyright 2008 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A bridge crosses railroad tracks at the Olympic Sculpture Park, Washington.

Back in 2008 I travelled to Seattle on mostly family business. I arrived a bit early and ended up spending some time wandering around the Olympic Sculpture Park, a place I enjoy both for the art and for the architecture and other features of this public space.

The bridge across the railroad tracks had interested me previously, but I’ve found it a difficult subject to photograph – somewhat surprisingly, since it seems to me like such an obvious thing to photograph. So in this image I more or less obscured most of the bridge itself, leaving not much more than the white vertical supports along its exterior and its overall shape and mass. I thought that the relationships between the texture of the metal bridge and the concrete underneath was interesting, as were some of the relationships between various shapes and angles. As I have done in a few other recent photographs, I played around with “pure” color and black and white renditions of the image – in the end deciding to sort of split the difference, thinking that a somewhat de-saturated color image might be most in line with my memory of the place and the scene on that winter day.

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.

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Stairs, Person Walking

Stairs, Person Walking
Stairs, Person Walking

Stairs, Person Walking. San Francisco, California. July 15, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A person walks past the bottom of a stairway along Stockton Street, San Francisco.

When I posted a color version of this photograph a week or so ago I mentioned that there was also a black and white version – and that I was up in the air about which I prefer. I’m still not certain, though I’m leaning more towards this monochrome version. While there are some aspects of the subtle colorations in the other version that I am hesitant to give up, I think that the angles and forms and masses of dark and light may be more the focus in this version.

Since I told the story on the original post I’ll keep it short here. I was in the Stockton Street area of Chinatown in the morning and had crossed the “bridge” at the termination of a dead end alley that sits above Stockton. There were two stairways down to the street level where Stockton emerges from a short tunnel. As I went down the stairs I thought that the angles and the light in the stairwell looked interesting as forms and was working out a composition or two when the figure walked through the frame and I reacted quickly to make a photo that is quite a bit different from what I was thinking of when I started.

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.

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