Tag Archives: urban

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: France, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Rooftops Of Paris, Twilight

May 10, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

This photograph is partly a hotel story. There are all sorts of such stories, but this one began poorly and ended well. We took a cab from the train station to our hotel when we arrived in Paris, hopped out, ran inside, went to the desk to check in… and they had no idea who we were. Uh, we were in the wrong hotel. Ours was next-door and, if I recall, had a similar name. We sorted this out, went to the right hotel, checked in, and went up to our room. We opened the door to find… someone else’s luggage spread out in the room. Uh, no…

Back downstairs at the desk they apologized profusely and asked if we should mind an upgrade to a better room with a better view on a higher floor. Sounded good to us, and we ended up high enough to have a decent overview of the surroundings. We didn’t initially think of this in a photographic context, at least not until we found ourselves in the room at twilight one evening as lights began to come on in the city and soon the Eiffel Tower was illuminated.

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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

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

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

Restaurant, Spring Evening

May 9, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Restaurant with windows open on a spring evening, San Francisco

On foot in the twilight, I’m always intrigued by the worlds inside restaurants and bars, separated from the outside world on the street but visible through windows. I suppose there is a bit of a voyeuristic appeal in this, but I’m also fascinated by the light and by the little vignettes, sometimes almost like separate photographs, that are framed by the windows.

This time I was out with a small group of night and street photographers, and we had just wrapped up some photography of a somewhat iconic view of the San Francisco waterfront. I decided to wander back into areas more conducive to my kind of street photography, so I walked past and briefly photographed a number of places like this one, a small bar (I think) in an old (or at least old-looking) wooden structure attached to the side of a much larger building, and with its windows open to the pleasant air of a spring evening.

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Flag Makers

March 22, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A complex landscape of steps, columns, braces, windows, reflections, and buildings

I made this photograph near the new, lower level entrance to the remodeled San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) during a visit around the start of the new year. The old entrance to the museum has now been augmented by a new entrance that leads into the newly added wing. A large installation fills the space on the very lowest level, and large windows open from there to the surrounding buildings and a stairway leading to the entrance one floor higher.

I love photographing in museums — for the architectural spaces and the people — and I photograph inside and around MOMA every time I visit. Some subjects are immediately obvious but other take a bit longer to figure out. This open area on the lower level is, for me, in the latter category. It immediately felt like a place to make photographs, but it has taken quite a few visits to begin to reveal its potential. This photograph is more or less a study of the many layers and angles found within and outside of this space, including layers of time between the very new museum and the very old brick wall just beyond the stairs.

Photographs: Night, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Support Columns, Purple and Green Wall

March 16, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Night photograph of dilapidated building in green and purple, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.

In contrast to the huge and somewhat garishly lit iconic towers and cranes of Mare Island, there are innumerable little quiet and hidden subjects to photograph. I think that most of us start with the obvious subjects and eventually, after shooting them many times, begin to look for these other possibilities. I photographed this in very low light, complicated by a bit of wind, and I could barely see the subject as I worked. (In order to focus I had to shine a small light on the edge of part of the structure.)

The colors were almost a bit of a surprise. At Mare Island there (or, in too many cases used to be, now that the lighting has been “modernized”) a wild variation in lighting types. There is often the moonlight. A glow comes across the water from Vallejo. Sodium vapor lamps can produce a sort of sickly yellow color. Tungsten light is warm colored, and fluorescent light can be very strange. As a consequence, the colors of this nighttime world are more about the colors of the lighting than the colors of the subjects themselves. The side of this building, which is probably quite drab in daylight, picked up subtle green and purple tones under the artificial light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: urban

Rooftops Of Paris, Twilight

Restaurant, Spring Evening

Flag Makers

Support Columns, Purple and Green Wall

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.