Tortaria. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A woman walks past a Manhattan tortaria with a red pickup truck parked in front.
I made this photograph about four years ago, and the brief tale of how emerged now is perhaps worth telling. Recently I was involved in a discussion of tilt/shift lenses. Part of the discussion drifted to image changes that could be made in post-processing rather than by using shift to correct converging perspective lines. I went looking for example files I could use, especially those that might have been shot with a very wide lens and in need of correction. I figured that urban photographs would provide good examples, so I started digging into my New York raw files. Eventually I ended up back in 2014… and to my surprise I found a group of images that I had almost completely forgotten about and which I never finished reviewing and processing.
Four years later I don’t even remember making this photograph, nor do I remember the location. (I could figure it out easily enough.) I’m betting that the initial attraction was to the contrast between the bright red pickup truck (and all of the things that it can symbolize) and the teal-colored front of the Tortaria. It may have been good fortune that the woman walked into the left side of the frame at this moment. I like the juxtaposition of the red and green-blue colors and the potential cultural and other symbolism of the big, red pickup truck.
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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