Tag Archives: street

Photographs: England, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Underpass Intersection, London

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Underpass Intersection, London
“Underpass Intersection, London” — Two roads come together beneath bridges, London.

I photograph when we travel, typically using quite different equipment and techniques than for my landscape photography. While the latter usually uses relatively large and heavy equipment, I downsize in a major way for travel. This is partly due to the realities of travel — we go light and I don’t want or need a big bag of cumbersome gear. (That would actually decrease the overall quality of my photography, which is something I’ll write about at some point.) But it isn’t just the gear — it is also the whole approach. I shoot handheld with a small camera, and I often approach the subjects as a street photographer.

The decision to render this as a monochrome photograph was a bit of a surprise to me. Those round shapes on the wall above the sidewalk are blue lights, and when I made the exposure I thought that they might be a key element. But when I finally got to this image in post, I much preferred the mood of the image in black and white, so I had to let go of that preconception about the lights and color. (As much as pre-visualization is a crucial skill, sometimes post-visualization wins the day!)

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: England, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

James Smith & Sons

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James Smith & Sons
“James Smith & Sons” — James Smith and Sons umbrella, whip, and stick shop, London.

During our early June visit to London we were lucky to be able to spend time with our oldest son, Brandon, who was there for a few days after a work visit. It is wonderful to meet up with your grown “kids” in such a place — for all the usual reasons, but also because sometimes they have new and different ways of orienting themselves to the local environment. At his suggestion and in his company we visited a number of places that we would not have seen. The James Smith & Sons shop, which I might otherwise have walked past with little notice, was one of them.

I’ll start with the obvious — you don’t find many shops in the US that were established nearly two centuries ago! The fascinating signs on the exterior are not just some kind of marketing — that’s actually what they have looked like for a long time. Inside, this is a classical shopping experience. Beautiful umbrellas, waling sticks, canes, folding stools, and more, at prices from reasonable to astronomical, fill the shop. Clerks talk to customers, going into great detail about the products. I came “this close” to buying something “just because,” and now I almost regret that I didn’t.

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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Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

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Photographs: England, Photographs: People, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Woman in Red, London

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Woman in Red, London
“Woman in Red, London” — :A woman in red sits on a ledg to check her phone in London.

I confess that I barely, if at all, remember making this photograph, nor can I say precisely where in London I made it. I grabbed it while in a particular mode of street photography that is the antithesis of how I might photograph, say, a landscape. I shoot handheld. I carry a small camera with a single small prime lens. I work very quickly, often not even slowing down to frame the subject, and continue on. In this case, I shot “blind,” holding the camera down at my side. (That created a little problem. More below.)

There are a few things about this photograph that could make some viewers a bit uneasy. First, I did not ask for permission and I doubt the subject was even aware that I made the photograph. There was no time, and if I had asked, the photograph would have been a very different thing. (BTW, sometimes I’m in public and I see that I might end up in someone’s photograph like this — and I remind myself that it is OK since I do it, too!) Second, the original image had a serious problem. It was badly tilted, perhaps as much as 20-degrees. I liked the image, but I had to crop radically to get the framing I wanted, and there were still problems. How did I fix it? For the first time, I allowed an AI tool to generate some content in the corners of the frame. Still not sure how I feel about that, but it seems worth experimenting with at least.

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.

Blog | About | Instagram | Flickr | Facebook | Threads | Post | Email

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

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Photographs: Scotland, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Ways

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Ways
“Ways” — A graffiti-filled side alley in Glasgow, Scotland.

We visited a number of Scottish towns and cities, ranging from small villages where we were lodged during our Great Glen Way trek up to the urban centers of Edinburgh and Glasgow. We were actually in Glasgow twice. Our (long!) flight from the West Coast of the USA (in two segments) terminated in Glasgow, so we had made arrangements to walk the short distance from the terminal to the closest hotel and fall asleep. The next morning we took a shuttle into Glasgow to catch a trail to Oban, and while waiting we walked just a bit around downtown. But it wasn’t until we returned a couple of weeks later that we had a chance to explore this city.

We liked Glasgow even more than we expected to. We had read various things about the city — some suggested that it was more mundane than its bigger neighbor Edinburgh, but others touted its charm, quirkiness, “workaday” quality, and street art. In the end, we ended up agreeing with the latter reaction. There’s plenty to see and do there, but it doesn’t have the same tourist pressure that we saw in Edinburgh. I made this photograph near the end of a very long walk we took one day. Perhaps it doesn’t quite illustrate the point I’m trying to make about the town, but it was a fascinating little alley off of one of the main thoroughfares.

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.

Blog | About | Instagram | Flickr | Facebook | Threads | Post | Email

Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

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