Tag Archives: street

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

Cafe de la Presse, Night

June 8, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Night at the Cafe de la Presse, San Francisco

In San Francisco for an evening of night street photography, we first wound our way up into Chinatown from the northwest at twilight, then slowly worked our way along various streets, looking for interesting light, architecture, and people. Because the streets are so narrow, filled with people, and lit brightly, this is a very interesting place to photograph. We continued on, ending up in the busy and touristy areas just south of Chinatown, where we split up and went separate ways.

It was almost time for me to leave, so I headed back the way I cam, on streets that were now becoming a bit less busy and crowded. I passed this little restaurant, with its corner entrance, and paused long enough to make a handful of exposures, photographing the wood-paneled interior and exterior walls and columns and the people who seemed to be settled in for a slow and quiet evening.

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

Repairing a Shop Window

June 7, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

At closing time, a man works to repair a shop window.

On a summer walk through sections of downtown San Francisco, beginning in the late afternoon and continuing after dark, I passed a street-corner shop that was just about to close. These shops, being in an area where such things are necessary, is blocked off at night by metal shutters. An employee was standing in a display window, repairing the shutters.

The man, focused on his work and seemingly unaware that he was now the featured “product” in this display window, was my initial subject. But I quickly saw other things in this scene. On the right side of the frame the wild explosion of colorful merchandise, lights, and reflections of the street behind me is almost impossible to figure out. On the left side there seems to be no reflection and the colors are more subdued, with the open shutters placing a horizontal grid over the dark figure of the store employee. Horizontals on the left; verticals on the right; complexity everywhere.

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

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

#932 Sale

June 6, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A shop with nighttime visitors, San Francisco

This is another in my series of night street photographs. This photograph comes from an evening in more or less the Chinatown area of San Francisco. This work is a sort of counterpoint to my landscape and nature photography. Although the two seem quite different, I think that each type of photography makes me better at the other. This work happens very quickly, usually without a whole lot of time to contemplate — so it exercises the fast and intuitive part of my seeing.

The photographs tend to occur in two ways. In some cases I simply see something happening and I have to photograph it immediately without a lot of time for conscious thought — if I wait the opportunity will be gone. Another sort of work has a stronger connection to landscape, and I think of these photographs as being a sort of urban landscape. As was the case with this photograph, I find a particular subject or composition and then I watch for figures to occupy the space in interesting ways. The interest can come from their relative positions, their posture and the direction they look, how they fit into the available lighting, and the color of their attire. And, as I have pointed out previously, this nighttime handheld street photography is something that only became reasonably possible very recently, with the development of small cameras that will work at very high ISO settings.

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

Reclining Man, San Francisco Bay

June 2, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A man rests along the shoreline of San Francisco Bay

It is usually not my habit to photograph the down and out, homeless people, and other photographic clichés — I often (though not quite always) feel that such photography can be too easy, can create a false impression of concern and engagement, and that the invasion of the subject’s privacy may raise some ethical questions that concern me. But like most rules, there are exceptions, and this subject seemed to be one for me.

There was something about this man, reclining quietly in the sun along this popular stretch of San Francisco’s scenic waterfront that has, looked at it certain ways, a kind of nobility. Something about him and his location and pose reminds me of certain Renaissance paintings. And, frankly, his appearance seems to me to coalesce and possibly completely change what would otherwise simply be another scenic San Francisco urban landscape photograph.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: street

Cafe de la Presse, Night

Repairing a Shop Window

#932 Sale

Reclining Man, San Francisco Bay

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