Curved windows, balconies, and railings of the Portside building on the Embarcadero, San Francisco.
This photograph of the Portside Building focuses on the curving upper structure of rounded windows, balconies, and railings. This intriguing building is located near the Embarcadero, almost directly beneath the west end of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in San Francisco.
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.
Black and white photograph of a man in a suit walking past the entrance of the Portside building along the Embarcadero, San Francisco.
I think that the Portside building is one of the more intriguing structures along San Francisco’s The Embarcadero, which travels along the waterfront of the San Francisco Bay. The building almost looks, to me at least, as if it might be more at home in Miami. The front is filled with layers of windows and balconies and curves, and it often picks up light from the Bay as the fog clears in the morning.
The blue cube-like metal-clad “extension” section of San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum, with downtown buildings in the background.
This metal structure is the so-called “extension” section of the Jewish Contemporary Museum in downtown San Francisco, located not far from Yerba Buena Center and the Metreon. On my frequent “walking photography” trips to San Francisco I often end up wandering through this area, and this building always intrigues me. The museum is build largely around an old (over 100 years) power plant building, but this metal-clad structure “extends” the underlying building.
The structure itself seems somewhat cube-like when viewed from close by, but is actually part of a larger structure that travels across the room of the power plant building. From up close it towers and leans back over the viewer. The surrounding area is also interesting with a large open space, and old Catholic church, and very tall downtown buildings nearby.
I’ve been working on figuring out how to photograph this building for a while now. The angles are tricky, the working space is limited, the light is complicated. I’m still not convinced that I have it, so this is one of my “thinking out loud” photographs which may turn out to be practice for other photographs that I eventually make here.
The San Francisco Caltrain station, photographed through glass lobby windows.
I frequently ride Caltrain to the City to do street photography. (Getting there by train is far better for me than taking the car, mainly because I think I can do more effective photography of this sort when I’m working completely on foot and not dealing with the whole driving/parking thing.) In this photograph I liked the nearly empty glass-enclosed lobby area, lit by very diffused light under the early morning fog, and with the trains visible on the other side. The “All Stops Special” sign seems enigmatic when seen out of context.
By the way, as much as San Francisco residents love the sunny and warmer days that occasionally come to the City this time of year, for photography I much prefer at least some fog and cloudiness, especially when I try to shoot during the daytime hours.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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