Tag Archives: transit

Photographs: People, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Waiting For Transit

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Waiting For Transit
People await their ride at a San Francisco light rail station.

Waiting For Transit. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People await their ride at a San Francisco light rail station.

Perhaps you already knew that I made this photograph a few years ago — it is in San Francisco, it is at a transit stop… and no one is wearing a mask! You wouldn’t find that combination today. (That’s one reason that the San Francisco Bay Area has among the lowest infection rates in the country, but I digress…) I made the photograph on one of my photography days in San Francisco, which tend to follow a familiar pattern: Up well before dawn, catch a train to the City, arrive around sunrise, spend the morning wandering on foot and photography, then take the train back home my mid-afternoon. San Francisco is a very walkable city, and you can cover a lot of ground there on foot.

Recently I had the pleasure of giving a talk on street photography to a somewhat surprising group, the photography section of the San Diego Chapter of the Sierra Club. That’s not your typical topic for this group, and I was aware that there might be some skeptics. My premise is that doing street photography (and other kinds of not-nature photography) can make you a better photographer, and that the benefits can accrue to your nature photography, too. I can’t recreate the entire talk here, but this photograph embodies a few key ideas. First, it takes advantage of a very local photographic opportunity, so I can photograph even when I can’t travel to lovely, far away, natural places. Second, it treats the street as a kind of urban landscape, occupied by “human wildlife.” In fact, I often construct photographs like this one by first finding the “landscape” and then waiting for passers-by to populate it. Third (and final for now) photographing these local subjects is good “practice” that keeps my ability to see photographically tuned up.

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: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Look. No Train Horn

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Look. No Train Horn
Sign near a light rail crossing in an old industrial area.

Look. No Train Horn. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sign near a light rail crossing in an old industrial area.

These signs are along one of the routes I take on my (nearly) daily urban walks. Sometimes the walks stick to tree-lined residential streets, but some of the routes take me into older areas that are a bit rougher around the edges, many of which feature old businesses and shops. There are still rail lines through some of these areas, though they are rarely used — and some have been closed off or even converted to non-rail uses. Here the local light rail transit system follows the route of the old tracks and crosses near an intersection where I found these signs.

Until a few months ago I frequently encountered the light rail trains at crossings like this one. But this is a Valley Transit Authority (VTA) route, and that is the entity that was the victim of a mass shooting earlier this year that tragically took the lives of a number of employees who work on the light rail system. The system remains shut down and there is so far no word on when it will reopen.

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 | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

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

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

City of New York

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City of New York
City of New York historic subway car

City of New York. New York City. December 27, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

City of New York historic subway car

I’ve used the subway system in New York as much as any out-of-town visitor, enjoying the fact that I can get to so many places all over the city on the subway plus a little bit of walking. But I don’t give the system all that much thought beyond trying to get on the right time at the right time at the right place. But when you stop to think about what it is and what it does it is quite an amazing thing. Hidden away beneath the surface of the extraordinary busy city is an entire transportation system and only rarely comes to the surface, and then mostly as it leaves Manhattan or heads out into more distant areas.

On our recent visit to New York we managed to go visit the subway museum in Brooklyn. (Hard to avoid this, since it was literally walking distance from where we stayed this time.) The museum holds many things, but perhaps most intriguing is the collection of historic rolling stock, going way back to the beginning of the system. A visit got me to take the system a bit less for granted. We saw this car at the museum, but then again a few days later on one of the “nostalgia” train days, when the old trains run once again and subway fans turn out by the thousands. By framing this photograph so tightly and from a direct point if view, I hoped to “see” the train a bit more for what it is as a shape, and a bit of an odd one at that.

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

Photographs: England, Photographs: Urban/Street

Red Bus, People on Bench

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Red Bus, People on Bench
A group of people sit on a concrete bench as a red bus stops behind them.

Red Bus, People on Bench. London, England. July 8, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A group of people sit on a concrete bench as a red bus stops behind them.

I think there might be a bit more to this photograph than meets the eye — at least I like to think so. The scene is a concrete bench along the edge of Trafalgar Square late in the day, as the low angle sun hits the bench and its occupants straight on. I’ll leave it at that…

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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