Tag Archives: steps

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

No Parking

Image August 11, 2022 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

No Parking sign and colorfu paint on a San Francisco residence.

There are lots of places offering similar visual opportunities in San Francisco, and they aren’t hard to find, especially if you get out and walk the City. And this is a very walkable city! I often walk almost all the way across between the CalTrain station and points north, following various favorite routes. This spot, if I recall correctly, is on a side street in roughly an area between North Beach and the tourist center known as Fisherman’s Wharf.

There are plenty of ways to photograph the sometimes-eclectic (and other times quite classic) architecture of this city. In terms of scale, I can go anywhere between including entire buildings (or even groups of them) and photographs that focus on very small elements — a door, a stairway, a bit of a window. In this one the colors, of course, were the main attraction. But I also was taken by the almost Cubist composition that resulted from cropping tightly.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Concrete Steps

Image May 14, 2022 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The simple story behind this photograph is that the steps are located at a formal garden where we had gone to photograph tulips and other spring flowers in April. As I photograph those subjects I also had my eyes open for non-floral photographs, too — in fact, sometimes my favorites from such places are not the flower pictures. On one level, this is just a photograph of steps. It is up to you how far beyond that you want to go.

I’m thinking of an insightful Minor White quotation: “One does not photograph something simply for ‘what it is’, but ‘for what else it is.” You miss out if you look at a photograph merely as “what it is.” Sometimes the photographer intends the “what else” and hopes that the viewer sees it. But in many situations the photographer may not fully see what is in the image at the time of exposure, and only discover it later. Sometimes the viewer may find things that the photographer doesn’t recognize. I’m going to leave it to viewers to consider this photograph from that perspective.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

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

Criminal Courts Building

Image December 29, 2021 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

This photograph comes from the same winter walk from Midtown to Lower Manhattan that I wrote about in another recent post. It was a somewhat unusual photographic walk, in that we had a specific appointment to make in Lower Manhattan just after sunset. With that in mind we were less able to follow our noses on this walk, and rather than pausing too much or taking little side journeys along the way, we progressed at a fairly regular rate to the south. This meant that I rarely had time to pause long to make photographs, aside from the occasional street light, so most of the photographs were made quickly, and I had only a short time to work any of the subjects. (In fact, we moved fast enough that I often did not have time to even take careful note of what I was photographing.)

As we passed this impressive Art Deco building in Lower Manhattan, the combination of angular stone faced, blue-toned evening light, and the contrasting warm yellow tones of interior light caught my attention. I was working quickly and using a fixed-focal length lens, so my compositional options were limited. I couldn’t photograph the entirety o the building, so I focused on this entrance area. It occurred to me later how profoundly the appearance of this scene is affected by light — a daytime photograph here would not be particularly dramatic, but there’s something a bit oppressive about the quality in this light.

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Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Railings and Fog, Battery Spencer

Image February 23, 2021 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

There are old forts and batteries all over the West Coast and especially around the San Francisco Bay Area. Many of them have long histories, though we tend to associate them with World War II, the most recent time when the country through they might be put to use. I know of a number of these sites, but I’m most familiar with those in the Marin Headlands, across the Golden Gate to the north of San Francisco. If you have visited a particular and iconic overlook of the famous bridge you have likely been near to this place.

It is one thing to visit these spots on a sunny day when they are overrun with visitors. But if you go early on a cold and foggy morning you may bet a better sense of what it might have been like to be stationed at one of these sites. When I visited on this fogged-in morning, I was attracted by the relationships and angles of the railings.