Tag Archives: street

Photographs: France, Photographs: Urban/Street

It’s Time To Dance!

May 12, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Graffiti, street art, and a potted ivy plant, Le Marais

We wandered into Le Marais, a section of Paris that still retains the old, narrow, and sometimes twisting streets from before the improvements that brought wide boulevards and a logical (or so they tell me) street layout. It is also a sort of “artsy” area, with lots of little shops, the occasional museum, interesting people, and lots of street art. All in all, it felt like a street photographer’s paradise to me. (I made my favorite photograph of the entire five-week trip — and perhaps one of my favorites of all time — here in Le Marais, probably only feet from where I made this one.)

The street art, which includes but is certainly not limited to graffiti, is ubiquitous. Some seems light-hearted, some has a darker edge. Some is political, and the meaning of some of it was opaque to me. The combination of the French language — which I don’t speak and only some of which I can figure out — and English, some of which seems just a bit odd or “off,” gave a lot of it a kind of perplexing quality. For example, the words written around the edge of the black planter down near the sidewalk, which enthusiastically announce “It’s Time to Dance!” I saw these large female dancing figures elsewhere, another visual theme whose precise significance eluded me.

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

Photographs: France, Photographs: Urban/Street

Exposition Le Bikini

May 11, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Surprising juxtaposition of signs posted on a wall in Le Marais, Paris

Street posters on urban walls can be interesting in a variety of ways. Often the colors are wildly juxtaposed, ranging from retro monochromatic looks to posters that go for very bright colors of paper, illustration, and text in an attempt to stand out from the other posters. They are not designed to last, and they often weather in interesting ways, with rips and runs and flaps and gouges. Interesting juxtapositions develop as the old layers are covered by the new and, over time, the new may fall off and reveal even older material.

These “Exposition Le Bikini” posters, in various sizes, were all over this part of Paris — we were walking through Le Marais. They may show up in some of my other street photographs from this visit, though not as central elements as in this one. I found the juxtaposition of “bikini” posters with posters for what I presume is a performance of very old Russian sacred music to be mildly jarring!

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

Photographs: Night, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Restaurant, Spring Evening

May 9, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Restaurant with windows open on a spring evening, San Francisco

On foot in the twilight, I’m always intrigued by the worlds inside restaurants and bars, separated from the outside world on the street but visible through windows. I suppose there is a bit of a voyeuristic appeal in this, but I’m also fascinated by the light and by the little vignettes, sometimes almost like separate photographs, that are framed by the windows.

This time I was out with a small group of night and street photographers, and we had just wrapped up some photography of a somewhat iconic view of the San Francisco waterfront. I decided to wander back into areas more conducive to my kind of street photography, so I walked past and briefly photographed a number of places like this one, a small bar (I think) in an old (or at least old-looking) wooden structure attached to the side of a much larger building, and with its windows open to the pleasant air of a spring evening.

Photographs: England, Photographs: Urban/Street

Greenwich Street Scene

May 8, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pedestrians walking along a Greenwich street

Our original plans had us in London for a shorter period of time. But plans change, and since it turned out that we were going to make a trip to New York before our UK/Europe trip began, and it didn’t make sense to fly back to California for two days in between, we moved the start of our London visit up by a few days. We found accommodations in central London for the added days, but we had already found less expensive lodging in Greenwich for the original dates — so part way through our visit we moved out to the “suburbs.” (The Greenwich place wasn’t a bad one at all. It was just a bit further away from the action, which is why it was less expensive.)

In any case, we found ourselves commuting in to London by rail quite a bit, often passing right by the central portion of Greenwich. But eventually it turned out to be convenient to stop there, grab a bite, and check things out. This area is clearly geared to visitors — lots of restaurants, for example. But it has, at least to this American, a rather different feeling from downtown London, so we enjoyed wandering around a bit and we found a pub with a nice outdoor garden for lunch. The light was quite beautiful on this day. There were clouds around, but the atmosphere was bright and the light was intense, so much that this photograph somehow reminds me a bit of winter light in Southern California.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: street

It’s Time To Dance!

Exposition Le Bikini

Restaurant, Spring Evening

Greenwich Street Scene

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