Tag Archives: urban

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.

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Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

The Tiger-Dragon

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The Tiger-Dragon
Street art on a vacant San Francisco storefront

The Tiger-Dragon. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Street art on a vacant San Francisco storefront.

When walking through this area of San Francisco, rather than take the popular Grant route I often go up a block and walk along Stockton. While Grant is largely lined with tourist shops, along Stockton you’ll find lots of markets, tons of people, and trucks lining up to drop off produce in front the markets. It can be so crowded here that it is almost difficult to pass along the sidewalk.

This photograph shows the side wall of one of the businesses in the area, and in this case a shop that is currently vacant. I don’t know the story behind this vacancy, but I do know that it is increasingly difficult for small businesses to pay the costs in this central San Francisco area. Not far away, along Columbus, there is a string of what were old-school Italian coffee houses that were apparently sold, the businesses closed, and who knows what will replace them?

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: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Marina Auto Body

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Marina Auto Body
Two women stand in in front to the painted walls of Marina Auto Body, San Francisco

Marina Auto Body. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two women stand in in front to the painted walls of Marina Auto Body, San Francisco

Marina Auto Body is not a place I had previously noticed on my San Francisco street photography walks. I’m a bit surprised, as it it is just a short distance down a side street that I almost always cross when walking from the train station toward the central downtown, and I have photographed other subjects near this intersection. Perhaps this time I missed the walk signal, looked around for a moment, and happened to see it.

I think that I perhaps first noticed the two figures standing in front of the show and set off against the mostly-blue paint of the building. I walked up the street so that I could be directly across the street to photograph — I might have wished to be a bit closer, but I had little choice given the wide and very busy street. I waited, and finally was able to photograph during a break in the traffic. The little building is visually remarkable, with vividly painted scenes on each of the large doors.

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

Digital Printing

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Digital Printing
Wall and sidewalk of a building advertising “digital printing.”

Digital Printing. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Wall and sidewalk of a building advertising “digital printing.”

Sometimes I wonder what people must think if they happen to notice me making street photographs. Take this image for example. I was walking with some sense of purpose back towards the 4th and Townsend Caltrain station, where I would pick up a train heading back down the peninsula following a morning of photography in San Francisco. In a location where most people are similarly focused on getting from point A to point B, usually with heads down, I suddenly stopped, stepped off the sidewalk… and photographed the wall of a nondescript building.

This photograph may be the urban equivalent of the “intimate landscape” image — I certainly think of photographs like this as being landscapes, and this one zeroes in on a very small area of a subject that folks overlook. Being a photographer who prints digitally, the “digital printing” sign had caught my eye when I passed by here a few hours earlier. Now I saw the soft light on the scene, the weathered quality of the wall, the geometry of the subject, and the relationship between the blue bar at the top and the blue quality of the light on the sidewalk.

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.