Tag Archives: street

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

Man Talking on Cell Phone

June 30, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Man sitting on a bench in front of a San Francisco building and talking on his cell phone.

The first time I worked on this photograph, I made a decision to work it up as a black and white image. However, when I returned to it a month or so ago, I felt like it might be interesting as a color photograph as well.

There is nothing all that special about the location itself – it is on a small street in an area that might be thought of as along the edges of downtown San Francisco. It is not too far to typical large downtown buildings, but here it seems that many might residences and rental units, and many on this street are connected with the Academy of Arts College (or is it “university” now?) facilities that are spread all around the city. I’m intrigued by the interesting shapes and colors and textures of these San Francisco buildings, that often embody some strange combination of a great deal of order (carefully painted rectangular white window frames), utility (the fire escape being almost the most prominent thing on the front of the building), and little oddities (the benches on a slanting sidewalk and guy talking obliviously on his cell phone).

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

People on Descending Escalator, MoMA

June 18, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A group of people on the “down escalator” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.

I couldn’t resist the idea of photographing the steady stream of distracted people coming down this escalator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. I employed a technique that I often use when shooting on the street, namely to find an interesting structural subject (in this case, the escalator) and then wait for the right person or people to occupy the frame. I made a series of photographs of people on this escalator, and ended up liking this one the most. There are a number of specific things about the people in the scene that attract my attention, but I’ll let you discover them on your own, should you be so inclined.

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

Courtyard, MOMA

June 13, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Black and white photograph of the courtyard of the New York’s Museum of Modern Art, photographed through windows of the museum.

Sticking with the urban New York theme for at least one more day, this is another photograph shot from a window in the Museum of Modern Art and looking out over a courtyard and architecturally busy urban scene combining older brick and stone facade buildings with more modern and taller buildings.

There are subtle (or perhaps not so subtle?) reflections in the window through which I made the photograph. These reflections are one reason, though not the only one, that I decided to render this as a black and white image – some of the shadows had colorations that did not work for me. To my mind, this photograph is related to some others that I’ve made featuring views of and through the windows of modern buildings, including this photograph from the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

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

Windows, MOMA

June 12, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

A scene consisting almost entirely of windows and secondary reflected subjects, Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Look closely and you’ll perhaps see that this is not quite what it might first appear to be. It is something of a visual trick or joke on one level. It is some other things, too.

The bottom line is that almost nothing in this scene is actually where it appears to be or even what it appears to be. The shot was made through an upstairs window of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the vertical shapes are the window frame and a bit of the interior wall at the far right, with some diagonal elements of the frame at top and bottom. But the “scene” outside is entirely reflected in the windows of the adjacent building – this is actually a photograph of a single glass-walled building, not exactly a photograph of an urban scene with buildings and trees and sidewalks and people – those are all reflections in the glass of the building. Obviously, I was also having some fun with perspective lines going off in a range of different directions – the window frame lines converging to the right, the outside perspective lines converging toward the left, and the converging lines on the reflected buildings headed back to the right. There’s more, but I’ll probably get lost if I try to describe it. A close inspection – easier with the print than in this little jpg – reveals some other odd stuff here and there: double images of some of the reflected buildings, some warping and bending of those shapes, people scattered around the courtyard and some moving figures that are barely visible.

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