Tag Archives: walk

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

A Purple Mask

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A Purple Mask
People gather outside a store at night.

A Purple Mask. San Francisco, California. July 25 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People gather outside a store at night.

A purple mask, eh? You may need to look closely at this small web version of the photograph, but if you do you may see that one of the people in the scene is carrying a furry purple mask. Don’t ask. I didn’t.

I’ll keep the commentary on this one to a minimum since I have already written a few times about the circumstances of such photographs. I made it on a summer afternoon and night walk through sections of downtown San Francisco. Here I was wandering slowly along Grant, the main tourist street of the city’s Chinatown district. By this time at night the crowds had diminished quite a bit, but most shops were still open. With fewer people on the street, there were better opportunities to find compositions that were less cluttered.

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

Red Pants

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Red Pants
“Red Pants” — People and their reflections on a walkway at SFMOMA

In my continuing effort to make my landscape photograph fans uncomfortable — just kidding! — here is another urban/street photograph from a recent day in San Francisco. As members of SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) we got tickets for the members’ pre-opening this week. (The museum officially reopens on May 14, following two years of a major renovation and expansion project.) To answer the obvious first question… the new building is beautiful in almost all ways. (It isn’t perfect, but what is.) We greatly enjoyed our visit, during which we managed to spend time in mostly the new areas, but also revisited a lot of the older structure as well.

I love museums, especially art museums, and I can spend hours in them, looking and thinking and making mental associations. But I also like photographing them — for the interesting architectural features which often produce a lot of very interesting light and geometry, but also as places to watch people. But I often have to be very quick, and that was the case here. I first saw this fellow in the red pants walking my direction, against a background of mostly colorless architecture and flat light. I had just time to make two very quick exposures. Initially I wasn’t hopeful about this one, as I felt that I had almost missed him as he walked out of the frame — but in the end that positioning ended up seeming to be the most interesting 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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Walking in Rain

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Walking in Rain
Three pedestrians share an umbrella on a rainy New York morning

Walking in Rain. New York City. December 2, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Three pedestrians share an umbrella on a rainy New York morning

My recollection is that we had gone to sort of the East Village area on this morning, first to find some pastry and coffee for breakfast at a place we’ve been to before, and then to wander about making some photographs in this urban area on a cool and wet morning. Breakfast and coffee taken care of, we started walking and watching the urban landscape and its human wildlife.

There is, of course, quite a lot to see, and much of it appears and disappears quickly. I rarely have a lot of time to think about a photograph, and quite often I have to move fast, composing on the fly. When this trio walked past I immediately noticed their color palette of basically black and red/pink and thought that there might be a photograph. We were already walking this direction so I quickly made a few exposures of this group of friends or relatives as they walked along, close together and sharing an umbrella on this drizzly morning.

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+ | 500px.com | 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: Night, Photographs: Urban/Street

Pedestrians, Mosco Street

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Pedestrians, Mosco Street
Pedestrians walk up Mosco Street on a raining Christmas Eve

Pedestrians, Mosco Street. Manhattan. December 24, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Pedestrians walk up Mosco Street on a rainy Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve in Manhattan, and we ended up in Chinatown at restaurant where we’ve eaten on this night in the past — but we discovered that it has apparently become popular since the last time we visited. The wait for a table (for our rather large group) was going to be at least 90 minutes, so we decided to look elsewhere. After figuring out that everything nearby was just about as crowded, we headed down the short length of Mosco Street to find a place with some open tables nearby.

This photograph illustrates one of the things that fascinates me about urban night photography, namely the wildly diverse light sources. Stop and consider the range of intense colors in this scene — the bright yellow light of the old street lamps along the right side of the street, the more neutral light on the left side from more modern lights, the spots of intense red and blue from store signs. Because it had rained, the streets were reflective, and they also picked up the wash of colors. A couple of people walk toward the camera on the left, casting shadows, and a solitary figure is in the yellow light along the brick wall on the right.

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+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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