Tag Archives: urban

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Climbing The Stairs

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Climbing The Stairs
A woman slowly climbs stairs near the entrance to a tunnel, San Francisco

Climbing The Stairs. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A woman slowly climbs stairs near the entrance to a tunnel, San Francisco.

The last time I took one of my quick trips to San Francisco to do street photography was months ago, and I’ve been planning recently to get back up there. Yesterday I finally found time. My photographic ritual there is pretty straightforward: I get up very early and catch a train up the Peninsula, typically arriving by about 7:00am. I travel light, with only the gear that will fit in a very small shoulder bag that doesn’t really look like camera gear. I walk, and this time I wandered close to eight miles over the course of about four hours, traveling through some areas that are run down in interesting ways, through the center of the financial district, and into the Columbus and Grant and Stockton streets areaI.

I enjoy street photography for several reasons. To be honest, as much as I love the natural world, I also love cities, and even more I love wandering through them on foot. Photographically-speaking, they provide a rich lab environment for finding compositions, color, people, and more. Street photography is usually be done unencumbered by the bulky gear I often use for landscapes, and I love the spontaneous aspects of it. This photograph embodies a number of things that I look for when photographing street. I’m always attracted by color and patterns and light — and this scene just inside the end of a tunnel is full of all of these things.

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: Netherlands, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Rainy Evening, Amsterdam

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Rainy Evening, Amsterdam
Pedestrians walk along a narrow Amsterdam brick street on a rainy evening

Rainy Evening, Amsterdam. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Pedestrians walk along a narrow Amsterdam brick street on a rainy evening

This was our first day in Amsterdam, on our first visit to this city. We arrived by train from London, got there in the afternoon, went to our hotel to get settled in, and then it was time to begin our explorations and to get something to eat. Our hotel was just outside of the very busy central area of Amsterdam, so we had to walk a few blocks first before we entered the familiar narrow and curving streets… and for the first time saw the busy crowds, scores of bicycles, and more.

It was a slightly wet evening — no hard rain, but enough to dampen the pavement and create reflections. The darkened, cloudy skies and the late hour limited the light, which always has the nice effect of making illuminated signs a bit more visible, but without blowing them out as can happen at night. Our first impression on entering this area was that we could just walk up the center of the street. That turned out to be sort of true, but there’s more to it than that in Amsterdam. Lots of different types of traffic share these streets — the ubiquitous bicycles, pedestrians, occasional scooters and cars — and it turns out that there are some rules and expectations about who goes where. If you haven’t been there before, I’ll just say, “Watch out for bicycles!”

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: Architecture, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: United Kingdom, Photographs: Urban/Street

Blue Door

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Blue Door
A blue door in gentle light and surrounded by a monumental door frame, London

Blue Door. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A blue door in gentle light and surrounded by a monumental door frame, London

A door, somewhere in London, but I’m now not sure where! I could probably come closer to locating it if I were to go back through the rest of the raw files from this day, but I think it may have been near our hotel, which was a short walk from Paddington Station and not far at all from Hyde Park. I know that we went out more than once for walks in this area, including the morning when I believe I made the photograph.

The doorway seems remarkable to me in several ways. The huge framing is quite something, and not much at all like anything you would typically see in the US, at least not in my part of the country. The frame is so monumental that it has the effect of either making the doorway seem twice as large as it really is… or of making the actual door seem very small. The color of the door is beautiful and something of a surprise given the other colors in the scene. And the light striking the door obliquely from the left seems very beautiful to me.

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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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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Commentary, Photographs: France, Photographs: Travel

Moored Boats, Seine River

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Moored Boats, Seine River
Boats moored along the banks of the Seine River, Paris

Moored Boats, Seine River. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Boats moored along the banks of the Seine River, Paris

Our hotel in Paris this past summer was not far from the Cathedral of Notre Dame — perhaps a five minute walk away — and we crossed the Seine in this area quite a few times during our stay. Most often this was an incredibly busy area, with crowds created by the constriction of river-crossing bridges and the many areas of interest to visitors.

As we crossed we often had interesting views of the river and the nearby city. From the ideal locations one can look up or down the river, past a series of bridges lined up one after the other. In many places a walkway, here including a few parked car, runs along the banks of the river midway between the water and the main streets up above. Interesting and colorful boats were moored here, too.

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.