Tag Archives: urban

Photographs: Germany, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Woman At The Wall

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Woman At The Wall
A woman at the Berlin Wall, East Side Gallery

Woman At The Wall. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A woman at the Berlin Wall, East Side Gallery.

We were in Berlin for a few days last summer, as one stop on our 40-day sojourn through (mostly) Europe. Our routine is mostly to travel light — carryon only — and to walk a lot in every city we visit. In fact, once we arrive in a city, with few exceptions we either walk or occasionally take public transit to get where we want to go. In Berlin it was entirely a matter of walking.

On this day our walking loop took us past the East Side Gallery which, despite the name, is one of the few remaining sections of the old Berlin Wall. It became a sort of outdoor gallery when artists took over sections of the wall and created a wild display of street art. I wanted to photograph some of the work, but I didn’t want to just come back with photographs of someone else’s art so I decided to look for coincidences and juxtapositions between the images on the wall and the people who passed by.

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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Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Wet Sidewalk, Shadows

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Wet Sidewalk, Shadows
Shadows and a man walking on a wet sidewalk, San Francisco

Wet Sidewalk, Shadows. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Shadows and a man walking on a wet sidewalk, San Francisco.

Street photographs come about in all sorts of ways. Quite often my approach is to locate an “urban landscape” composition and then wait for people to populate it. Sometimes I photograph without people in the scene at all. On other occasions the person may be the triggering subject, and instead of finding a person to fill the landscape I try to find a landscape to build around the person. In other photographs the primary objects may by colors or geometry. And often it all happens so quickly that there is almost no time to contemplate before making the photograph — do it now or it is gone.

This photograph brings a few of these threads together. It was most certainly one of those “no time to contemplate” photographs. As I walked down this street I realized that the sidewalk held both reflecting water and the angles of shadows. (Every time I see something like this I remember a particular winter photograph I made in New York City a few years back.) Both I and the subject were in motion, walking along this sidewalk in the direction of the Caltrain station, so almost without breaking step I raised the camera and managed to get one frame.

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

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

Photographs: Germany, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Blue Shirts, Wall

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Blue Shirts, Wall
Two men in blue shirts at the East Side Gallery, Berlin

Blue Shirts, Wall. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two men in blue shirts at the East Side Gallery, Berlin.

Berlin’s “East Side Gallery” is a section of the Berlin Wall — which has been entirely removed in almost all other areas — that was turned into a sort of street art exhibit, with all sorts of artists adopting sections of the wall and creating a kaleidoscope of wildly diverse imagery. We were in Berlin for a few days in 2018, and one day we walked over this direction.

I’m often a bit confused about how and even whether to photograph street art. One problem is that making photographs of the creative work of others feels a bit shallow at times. Another problem is that with some kinds of tagging that verge on vandalism, the photographer can feel complicit by sharing the tags more widely. (By the way, tagging is rampant in areas of Berlin that we visited, and some of the familiar American ground rules — such as not tagging homes — are regularly ignored there.) But sometimes photographing the work of others makes sense, and here I decided to mostly focus on the other people there to see the work. Once I did that I began to see a lot of striking coincidences and relationships — such as this pair of men wearing blue shirts and walking in front of this wildly detailed section of the wall.

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.

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

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Red Doors

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Red Doors
Red doors, reflective panes, San Francisco

Red Doors. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Red doors, reflective panes, San Francisco.

Here is another photograph from my search for color last week in San Francisco. OK, my main purpose in taking the train up there wan’t literally to search for color — it was to do street photography in this rich urban environment. But the way I see “street” often includes color as an important element. (Sometimes I employ a little mental checklist to keep me focused and flexible when looking for subjects, and the word “color” is one of the points on the list.)

As is often the case, I don’t recall precisely where I found this pair of red doors. (It was quite possibly in the vicinity of San Francisco’s Chinatown district.) Oddly, I do have a rather specific memory of seeing the doors and making the photograph though, a process that included an answer to the question, “How do I avoid putting my own reflection in those windows!?”

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.

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