Tag Archives: walking

Photographs: Austria, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Walking Man

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Walking Man
A man walks up a gentle slope in front of old buildings, Vienna

Walking Man. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A man walks up a gentle slope in front of old buildings, Vienna

Two summers ago we spent seven weeks “on the road” traveling though parts of Europe. We travel on our own — except when we meet up with family members — and tend to sort of wander in whatever places we visit. On this occasion we were in Vienna and, if I recall correctly, the Austrian Postal Savings Bank (Österreichische Postsparkasse), a remarkable bit of early twentieth-century architecture. While I do have photographs of that location, I also make photographs of… things like this.

In cities I usually carry a small rangefinder-style camera with a small prime lens attached, and I often have it ready at my side as I walk. That was almost certainly the case here. I am pretty certain that I initially had been photographing the blocky architecture of this street when I saw this man about to walk into the frame.

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: Austria, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

In Front of St. Stephen’s Cathedral

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In Front of St. Stephen's Cathedral
People walking at night in front of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna.

In Front of St. Stephen’s Cathedral. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People walking at night in front of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna.

Two summers ago we took a long tour through a bunch of European cities, traveling on our own and spending at least four days at each stop. This gave us time (though there is never really enough of it) to wander and poke around these places. One of our stops was Vienna, where we had not been before. I knew things about Vienna, but I didn’t really get its culture until we got off the train, caught a taxi, and drove past the remarkable architecture of the place. We stayed not far from this location at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, which gave me the opportunity to grab my camera and go out to photograph in the street at night.

This is, of course, a busy part of Vienna — full of shops, all kinds of obvious tourist attractions, restaurants and so on. While I sometimes can be a bit annoyed by dense crowed (though, at other times, energized by them), right now I’d give anything to share these streets with a few thousand other people on a summer evening.

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.

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

Photographs: Italy, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Summer Evening, Florence

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Summer Evening, Florence
People out on a summer evening in the narrow streets of Florence, Italy

Summer Evening, Florence © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

People out on a summer evening in the narrow streets of Florence, Italy.

For some reason I seem to be in a “black and white” frame of mind this week. Part of this is attributable, no doubt, to ongoing work preparing prints for an exhibit opening next week at Stellar Gallery in Oakhurst, California (“Arms Wide Open: Black and White Photography”). I also recently wandered back into an archive of photographs from a visit to Italy a few years ago, and again took up a thread that included night photographs made in Florence.

So here you have a black and white night photograph from that Florence, made while walking about on a warm summer evening in that town. After spending a week in the Chianti region we ended up in Florence for a few days before flying home, and we spent the time walking the narrow streets of this town, from early morning until late at night. Here a small eatery extends into the narrow street and pedestrians wander along the narrow, curved walkway.

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

Wet Sidewalk, Shadows

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Wet Sidewalk, Shadows
Shadows and a man walking on a wet sidewalk, San Francisco

Wet Sidewalk, Shadows. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Shadows and a man walking on a wet sidewalk, San Francisco.

Street photographs come about in all sorts of ways. Quite often my approach is to locate an “urban landscape” composition and then wait for people to populate it. Sometimes I photograph without people in the scene at all. On other occasions the person may be the triggering subject, and instead of finding a person to fill the landscape I try to find a landscape to build around the person. In other photographs the primary objects may by colors or geometry. And often it all happens so quickly that there is almost no time to contemplate before making the photograph — do it now or it is gone.

This photograph brings a few of these threads together. It was most certainly one of those “no time to contemplate” photographs. As I walked down this street I realized that the sidewalk held both reflecting water and the angles of shadows. (Every time I see something like this I remember a particular winter photograph I made in New York City a few years back.) Both I and the subject were in motion, walking along this sidewalk in the direction of the Caltrain station, so almost without breaking step I raised the camera and managed to get one frame.

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.