Tag Archives: street

Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Doorway, Dark Street

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Doorway, Dark Street
“Doorway, Dark Street” Light from inside a darkened building escapes through a door, casing a pattern on a dark industrial street.

This photograph comes from a San Francisco Bay Area location where I’ve been doing night photography for over 15 years. It is a place with striking visual icons including huge ship yard cranes, old buildings, and (until its removal a few years ago) a gigantic “smoke stack” towering above a power plant. Over the years I became less interested in re-photographing those things, and I began to spend more time searching out subjects that I had overlooked, scenes that are quieter and more contemplative than those icons.

I “discovered” this photograph during my pandemic-era return to old photographs that I had not looked at for years. This one exemplifies several things I’ve observed about the process of reviewing photographs shortly after making them. I usually have a few images in mind that I know will be promising, and I begin with those. As I work on the archive I invariably discover that others are more worthy than I initially expected, and this process of uncovering unexpectedly interesting photographs continues… until I am distracted by the next project, at which point I often move on and leave some interesting work behind. In this case, the “moving on” process was hastened a bit because one of my favorite night photographs came from this same evening, and I think that made me feel like I was done with that night’s work. But I wasn’t.

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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

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Photographs: Urban/Street

Free Couch

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Free Couch
A free couch and colorful pillows on the sidewalk in a suburban neighborhood.

Free Couch. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A free couch and colorful pillows on the sidewalk in a suburban neighborhood.

While walking in the neighborhood (which means anything in a radius of about three miles around our home) I often come across things that are… interesting. At this point I can point to homes occupied by hoarders, the best places to look for free garden produce left out for passers-by (which is why we have two loaves of persimmon bread in our freezer), cool house paint, the folks who imagine that putting a fake green carpet when their lawn used to be makes it “beautiful,” the neighborhood full of expensive and gigantic and extremely banal homes, and more.

I also come across quite a bit of suburban detritus. The things that we don’t want any more probably reveal a lot about us — perhaps more than we realize. (It is amazing that someone actually wants some of these things. We’ve had people pick up things like broken rakes…) In a few cases, I suspect that the give-aways may reflect past decisions that the owners eventually realized were, well, not examples of their best aesthetic judgment. Notice those pillows?

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: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

696

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696
Rollup doors on building 696, San Jose.

696. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Rollup doors on building 696, San Jose.

This photograph is a bit of a study in “accidental geometry” that I encountered while on a walk earlier this fall. The two roll-up doors are almost but not quite perfect mirror images, but the surrounding walls are almost opposites, light and dark, and the whole thing is set off by horizontal areas at the top and bottom. There is one little asymmetrical element in the numbers next to the right door — but even there you can find a certain interesting formal pattern if you look for it.

This probably doesn’t seem like my usual subject, but I can assure you it is the sort of thing I see quite often — more often, in fact, than autumn aspens, rugged seashores, deserts, and alpine mountains. It is the terrain of my regular pandemic walks in a circle that extends across a several mile radius from our home. In one direction I often end up passing through light industrial areas, including some that might seem just a bit sketchy. In fact, as I made this photograph I was standing within feet of the temporary pandemic homes of trailer-dwellers parked on the street.

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 to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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Photographs: Pandemia, Photographs: Urban/Street

Green Wall, Autumn Leaves

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Green Wall, Autumn Leaves
Doorway, green wall, roll-up door, a pylon, and autumn leaves at an urban business.

Green Wall, Autumn Leaves. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Doorway, green wall, roll-up door, a pylon, and autumn leaves at an urban business.

This is a photograph I made on one of my long, almost-daily “pandemic walks” that circle out from my neighborhood to include everything from residential neighborhoods to light industrial areas and more. This building is along one of my common routes, and I probably pass by several times per week, usually without paying it much attention.

Scenes like this seem to me to contain more than might be immediately apparent. Objectively it is just a door in the side of a boring concrete industrial warehouse. But a few of the oddities attract me —‚ the brightly colored pylon, the oddly tilting yellow pole with its shadow pointing to the door, various geometries, and that wild green color.

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 and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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