Tag Archives: wall

Photographs: Germany, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Zigaretten

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Zigaretten
A cigarette vending machine along a street near Heidelberg, Germany

Zigaretten. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A cigarette vending machine along a street near Heidelberg, Germany.

I cannot say if these things are still around in Germany, but they were back in 2016, much to my surprise. (I haven’t seen anything like them in the USA in years.) This is another “rediscovered” photograph that I came across while going through older files. One side effect of that is that I’m not quite exactly sure where I made the photograph! I think it was in a small village up the Neckar River from Heidelberg.

One challenge that I like to play with is making photographs out of subjects that seem superficially very mundane, here a vending machine attached to a wall. But there are a few layers of “what else” this photograph is. I contend that the play of light and shadow is both compositionally interesting and actually kind of “pretty.” And the subject itself makes me think about how times have changed from when I was younger and smoking was ubiquitous.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: France, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Sortie de Garage

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Sortie de Garage
Garage, doors, windows, and wall along a narrow Paris street.

Sortie de Garage. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Garage, doors, windows, and wall along a narrow Paris street.

I am hopeful that you’ll indulge my recent and continuing thread of photographs from one small area of Paris, photographs made on a single walk about a half-dozen years ago. A return to one photograph from this day led me to reconsider a bunch of photographs that I had almost forgotten, and I’ve been enjoying this “virtual trip” back to that day in Paris.

I understand that a traditional notion of street photography is that it focuses on catching people doing what they do “in the streets” of an urban area. My idea of street photography is a bit broader, encompassing not just human activity, but also architecture and the overall urban landscape. I’m fascinated by doors and windows and walls, and there are always little unexpected details to see. In this photograph, one of them is the small sign that provided the title. Another is the contrast between the simple, square forms on the main building and the elaborate decoration on the visible bit of the building to the left.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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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: Architecture, Photographs: France, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Blue Door, Wall, and Sidewalk

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Blue Door, Wall, and Sidewalk
A quiet street scene with a blue door, Le Marais, Paris.

Blue Door, Wall, and Sidewalk. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

A quiet street scene with a blue door, Le Marais, Paris.

As I worked on this photograph I had a bit of an odd experience. I rarely mention it here, but my academic training is in music and I was s a college music faculty member. But it is difficult to understand, much less explain, the relationships between my audio and visual lives. The entire subject is too big and complex to cover here. The odd experience? I was listening to music as I worked on this photograph and a few others from the same source. Perhaps surprisingly, I don’t usually do that.

Why do I mention this? I usually consider photographs almost exclusively from a visual perspective — the nature of the subject, the quality of light, the composition and relationships among elements, color, texture, and so on. But the particular music I was listening to as I worked on this photograph changed my perspective on it in a way that is difficult to describe. (The music included some work by the composer Max Richter, which often moves slowly and quietly.) The scene took on a quiet and a stillness that I had not thought about before, and I began to think about the age of this building and what might be behind that door and those windows. Music can do that to you.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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: France, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Man at the Corner

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Man at the Corner
“Man at the Corner” — A worker leans against a wall on a Le Marais corner.

Sticking with the Paris street photography theme a bit longer (perhaps quite a bit longer?), here is another photograph from Le Marais. Like several of the other recently-shared photographs, I made this one within a few moments of my “Je Suis Bleu” photograph featuring three women and a fascinating poster-covered wall. Initially that photograph was so central in my experience that day that I overlooked others made right before and after it. Writing an article about that photograph lured me back to the other raw files, and I ended up “discovering” several other interesting images.

This fellow figures in several of the exposures I made. There’s another where he is in the middle of a street, part of a larger group of pedestrians that is fronted by an “in your face” image of a walking woman. (You may see that one, too, before long.) Here he appears alone, just around the corner from the location of the “Je Suis Bleu” photograph. Viewers with sharp eyes may recognize the chalk head on the wall at far left.

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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

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