Tag Archives: urban

Photographs: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: People, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

America’s Pastime

January 2, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Baseball fans along the outer walkways of San Francisco Giants’ AT&T Park, with scoreboard, commercial messages, and twilight sky.

This photograph comes from a couple of years ago, and is one that I “found” again recently during a scan though a half dozen or so years worth of old files. I tend to be rather cautious about deleting old files, but I finally decided that some of the older files really not worth keeping – and the side benefit of cleaning out some of the photographic cobwebs is that I often rediscover photographs that I had forgotten.

We go to a few San Francisco Giants games every season. While I like the baseball, other things also draw my attention. In addition to the garlic fries and beer (!), AT&T Park also provides a lot of interesting photographic opportunities. At some point during every game I tend to just wander around the facility and see what might make an interesting photograph. Most often I use the elevated vantage points around the park to photograph San Francisco and the Bay, but sometimes I also photograph subjects within the stadium, too.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Lamp Post, Brooklyn Bridge

December 31, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A Brooklyn Bridge lamp-post stands against a backdrop of several iconic lower Manhattan structures, New York City.

I was surprised to find that I apparently never posted this photograph after our August trip to New York City. We had taken the subway over to Brooklyn very early in the morning to meet our son, and then wandered around some areas of Brooklyn near the waterfront where there is a view of lower Manhattan. Eventually we worked our way over to the Bridge with the plan being to walk back to Manhattan.

As we walked along I noticed several things that seem to characterize this bridge. Some of the features are pretty obvious to the point of being iconic – the pattern of the support cables for example. But these lamps kept distracting me, so I decided to see how I could photograph them. At this point, it occurred to me that I could actually leave out most of the bridge except for the lamp post (and a bit of the top of one of the towers) and then line it up with a bunch of other recognizable stuff on the lower Manhattan skyline. I chose to desaturate this image quite a bit in post, which explains the somewhat unusual color palette.

Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Holiday Lights, Shadows

December 30, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Late afternoon light on holiday lights on a trellis casts shadows on a cloth backdrop.

For some reason, each year around this time it occurs to me to simply walk out my front door and wander around making photographs more or less in my neighborhood. It is an interesting experience that I think every photographer should try. The first time I tried this locally I “saw” things that I had not noticed during decades living in the area. In addition, looking for things to photograph in what might seem like an unlikely location serves to “tune up” my ability to see, and it helps me renew my ability to look past the obvious to find different subjects and different ways to look at them.

At one point on this “photo walk,” I wandered through a parking lot behind some shops. I photographed the back of a building that had an interesting shadow from an exterior staircase and around which interior furniture was arranged… outside. Then as I walked back across the parking lot I happened to see this trellis covered with strings of holiday lights, catching the warm late-afternoon sun and casting shadows on a sheet of canvas hung behind it.

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

San Francisco Skyline, Pre-Dawn Sky

December 12, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pre-dawn sky begins to light the skyline of San Francisco, California.

While at San Francisco’s Crissy Field to photograph the lunar eclipse over the Golden Gate Bridge I realized that this unusual celestial phenomenon was by no means the only worthy subject at this early morning hour. Meanwhile, there was a beautiful and mysterious sunrise developing in the eastern sky beyond the City and over the East Bay, enhanced by a lot of atmospheric haze. (This was the same haze that ultimately caused the eclipsed moon to fade to invisibility shortly after the sky began to lighten.) So, while 99% of the photographers were still pointing their lenses west, I (along with a few other folks) pointed east and toward this section of the San Francisco skyline in roughly the Knob Hill and Russian Hill areas, with the familiar shape of the Transamerica pyramid partially hidden behind closer buildings and some typical San Francisco neighborhood buildings and trees up close at the bottom.

Yet again, this scene reinforced the idea that it is always important to look around at the whole scene. It is so easy to become completely focused on the single subject that you started out with – and sometimes this is a good thing! – that you may overlook other worthy subjects in other directions. I still have to remind myself sometimes to look up and scan my surroundings to see what else might be worth photographing.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: urban

America’s Pastime

Lamp Post, Brooklyn Bridge

Holiday Lights, Shadows

San Francisco Skyline, Pre-Dawn Sky

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