Tag Archives: walk

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Little Italy, Evening

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Little Italy, Evening
Little Italy, Evening

Little Italy, Evening. New York City. August 10, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Visitors pack closed streets though Manhattan’s Little Italy.

Walking more or less northwest from New York’s Chinatown district after dinner we ended up heading through Little Italy. As we walked on this Sunday evening we started seeing huge crowds of people and we soon figured out why. Apparently the streets through here are closed on Sunday evening, and restaurants tables spill out across the sidewalks, and people end up walking up and down the middle of the streets. The photograph is deceptive — it shows perhaps the smallest number of people that I saw here, and most of the time the streets were packed.

Originally we “planned” (to the extent that we were operating on any kind of plan!) to just walk through here, but it was so lively that we slowed down, stopping for sidewalk gelato, and I made some photographs. The colors were intensified by the diminishing late-day light, and I held my camera above my head and shot blind to get this elevated point of view. Ideally, I think this image works best as a large print, since there are so many small details to look at that aren’t easily visible in this small web version.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Walking Man, Columns

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Walking Man, Columns
Walking Man, Columns

Walking Man, Columns. San Francisco, California. June 13, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A man walks between architectural columns, San Francisco

This is what I think of as a “compose and wait” shot, something I often do when shooting street photography. I find an interesting composition — here the series of columns, with shadows falling across them, and the mottled foreground light reflected from the windows of nearby downtown buildings — and then I wait for a person to walk into the frame and provide a center of visual interest.

This approach provides an interesting combination of intentional and carefully composed elements (the selection of overall subject and its composition) with elements that are almost completely out of my control — I have no idea who will walk into the frame, exactly where they will be, or what they will be doing. Things tend to happen very quickly, too. Obviously, I could not really track this subject into the frame, as he was behind these large columns, so I have to react quickly. In truth, when I work this way I often end up making quite a few exposures that just don’t quite work… but if I’m lucky it may all fall together in a single frame.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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

Person, Stairs, Wall, Windows

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Person, Stairs, Wall, Windows
Person, Stairs, Wall, Windows

Person, Stairs, Wall, Windows. New York City. December 29, 2013. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A person ascends stairs inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

On this day, halfway through our late-December week in New York City, we finally had some bad weather. Not as bad as the snowstorms that shut down the city a week or so later, but enough cold rain that walking around Manhattan was starting to seem a lot less appealing than it had been the day before. We decided that the weather would make it a good day for indoor activities, so we got on the subway and headed up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art… where we joined what seemed like about half of New York City in using the Museum as a rainy day activity!

If you have been there, you know that this museum is huge – far too big to see the whole thing in a day. We’ve gone a number of times, each time poking into new areas that we had not seen before and visiting a few familiar areas. This time we visited some galleries displaying photography and finally ended up way in the back of the facility in a section of newer architecture. This seemed like an odd spot to me. What here looks like the exterior windows of a building, with a sidewalk in front, is actually inside the museum. If I recall correctly, it is in an area where new and old architecture meet.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Walkway, Manhattan Bridge

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Walkway, Manhattan Bridge
Walkway, Manhattan Bridge

Walkway, Manhattan Bridge. New York City. December 27, 2013. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A nearly empty walkway on the Manhattan Bridge

New York City’s Manhattan Bridge is not the Brooklyn Bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge is a popular tourist destination and full of pedestrians and cyclists in nice weather, and even sees quite a crowd in conditions that are less appealing. We began this day’s visit to Brooklyn by walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was cold – in the twenties, if I recall correctly, but there were still hundreds of other people taking this walk and enjoying the expansive views from the walkway, which is high on the bridge and above the vehicle traffic.

We returned via the Manhattan Bridge… which is most definitely not the Brooklyn Bridge. The first hint was that we were told to expect the thunderous sound of passing subway trains every couple of minutes – they travel above ground to cross this bridge. Once on the bridge, it is clear that no one expects a lot of foot traffic here – and there is not much. Instead of a beautiful walkway, high above traffic and with views in all directions, this walkway is narrow and cramped and bounded by metal walls and cyclone fences. You can’t really see any view to the north of the bridge, and the view to the south is blocked by the fence. In many places there is a lot of graffiti. This is not the Brooklyn Bridge – but I recommend this walk, too.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.