Tag Archives: urban

Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Restaurant, Diner, Bicycles

Leave a comment
Restaurant, Diner, Bicycles
A man sits at a table at an outdoor restaurant at night, Florence, Italy

Restaurant, Diner, Bicycles. Florence, Italy. August 27, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A man sits at a table at an outdoor restaurant at night, Florence, Italy

Photographing in the streets of Florence, Italy was a joy when we visited this past summer. My only regret is that we were there for such a short time. We spent a week in the hills between Florence and Siena, and we picked up our rental car in Florence before leaving for the hills. (And, yes, driving in Florence is just as much fun as you have heard.) Then we returned to Florence and had parts of three days there before leaving. As I know fully understand, three days was not nearly enough time!

In one way, the streets of Florence seem to have a more uniform look than many American cities. There are few obvious commercial signs and many buildings are roughly the same shade of brown. But the streets are often very narrow and they twist and turn in all kinds of interesting ways, occasionally opening up to large squares or the banks of the Arno River. At night things are even more magical. One moment you might find yourself in the midst of crowds of people, and in another you might be on a deserted side street. This small street, with its beautiful lighting, extended off of one of the large squares, a somewhat busy place, but here there was just one man sitting at this sidewalk cafe.

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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

Woman, Sculpture Park, East River

Leave a comment
Woman, Sculpture Park, East River
A woman sits in a blue chair on a lawn at the Socrates Sculpture Park along the East River, New York

Woman, Sculpture Park, East River. New York City. October 8, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A woman sits in a blue chair on a lawn at the Socrates Sculpture Park along the East River, New York

On this lovely, clouded day of light rain and muted colors, we traveled to the Socrates Sculpture Park along the East River, across the water from Manhattan. Our daughter-in-law  Lia Lowenthal has a piece installed at the park that we wanted to get to see. I had not visited this place before, and it is quite an interesting site — partly because of its shoreline location, partly because it provides an interesting juxtaposition of urban and natural, partly because there is an active sculpture studio next door, and partly because of the works installed there.

After looking at the art I began to look at the environment with photography in mind. I saw this woman sitting on a piece of sculpture in the middle of this worn looking lawn, with the upper Manhattan skyline across the water, and everything in this soft, flat light — and I thought it made a photograph.

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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

Storefronts, Reflections

Leave a comment
Storefronts, Reflections
Sidewalk shops and window reflections, San Francisco

Storefronts, Reflections. San Francisco, California. May 20. 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sidewalk shops and window reflections, San Francisco

Near the end of May I did one of my San Francisco walking street photography trips, heading up to The City on the train and then following a large loop through downtown San Francisco. San Francisco is a great walking city, and I’m able to cover a lot of ground and see a lot of diverse urban landscape on these walks — from the waterfront to business districts to industrial areas.

I saw a lot of interesting and possibly unexpected things in this little street side vignette. Oddly, there are no people in the photograph — more typically I line up an urban landscape like this one and then wait for subject to enter the frame. The colors, of the structures and of the shadow light, caught my attention — primarily we’re looking at the greenish awnings and the intense reds found in several places, with everything subject to the blue light of the shadows. And, of course, for this photographer it was frosting on the cake to be able to include the words on the awning in this photograph.

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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

Woman on Balcony

Leave a comment
Woman on Balcony
A woman sits on the fire escape balcony of a brick apartment building

Woman on Balcony. New York City. July 30, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A woman sits on the fire escape balcony of a brick apartment building

The first stop on our five-week “grand tour” was New York City — our oldest son and our daughter-in-law were getting married. This is the longest the two of us have ever been “on the road,” and before we were finished five weeks later we had been to New York City, London, Paris, Heidelberg, briefly in Munich and Bologna, then the Chianti region between Florence and Siena in Italy, and finally in Florence for a few days. Whew! One thing that came out of visiting all of these places, with between five or six days and up to eight days in each place, is that we got both a sense of the character of each place (though incomplete, of course) and we were able to see the contrasts between them. New York City certainly has its own character, somewhere on the spectrum closer to London than Florence perhaps.

The entire New York visit was not taken up by wedding events, so we did have a chance to get out and explore New York a bit, which we always enjoy. On this afternoon we ended up at the High Line Park, walking part of its length on a hot and humid day the eventually led to some light rain. (That seems to be a theme for us near the High Line.) Since I’ve been to this park before I have gotten to know some of the surroundings, and this particular brick wall of windows and fire escape stairways always attracts my attention. And this isn’t the first time I’ve found an interesting person on that very balcony — somewhere in my collections I’m pretty certain that I have another photograph of someone on this exact same balcony, sitting outside on a similar hot and humid day before the rain arrived.

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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