Tag Archives: wall

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Napping Man on Bench

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Napping Man on Bench
A man taking a nap on a sunny bench in Manhattan

Napping Man on Bench. New York City. July 2, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A man taking a nap on a sunny bench in Manhattan

This is the second of a pair of photographs featuring this red wall near Washington Square in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan. If my memory is correct, the building is part of the NYU campus. We were passing that way on a walk in the uptown direction from our hotel, and soon after I made this photograph we spent a good chunk of time enjoying the Sunday morning ambiance of the park, where (no surprise!) lots of stuff was going on: a piano performance, a couple of jazz groups, people exercising, folks reading the Sunday paper, “pigeon man” (a story for later), and much more.

New York City is a pretty warm place this time of year. (I can hear New Yorkers exclaiming, “Duh!” right about now.) Lots of people, including me, and find it enervating, especially when the humidity is high. As it usually is. Looking now at this photograph (which I made almost as much for its geometry, light, and color as for its human subject), I can feel that heat and humidity and relate personally to the urge to simply fall asleep for a moment on such a bench!

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

Walking Woman, Wall

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Walking Woman, Wall
A woman walks past a Manhattan wall

Walking Woman, Wall. New York City. July 2, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A woman walks past a Manhattan wall

We returned last night from a week in Manhattan, mostly visiting family but also wandering… and eating… and photographing. I know for a fact that I’m not the only so-called nature or landscape photographer who also loves photographing the urban landscape, and when there is hardly a more varied or compelling location than New York City — from Central Park to the skyscraper canyons to the variety of neighborhoods. I’m often happy to just go out walking with my camera, with only the vaguest notions of what I’ll photograph, and to be open to surprise.

We were walking uptown from our hotel, which was on Grand, almost in the middle of the Little Italy area, and we decided to pass through the Washington Square area. We were almost there when we approach portions of the NYU campus and I saw this cubist scene, with colors, shapes, and textures that immediately reminded me of the sandstone canyons of the Southwest. (Yes, my mind works that way, even in the Big City.) I made a few quick initial exposures and then paused to see who would walk into the frame on this sunny 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.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Urban/Street

Metal Wall

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Metal Wall
A metal wall leads away toward a person standing in a doorway

Metal Wall. San Jose, California. June 21, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A metal wall leads away toward a person standing in a doorway

This certainly qualifies as an opportunistic photograph. We had heard that a local brewery was going to host a Fujifilm “drink and click” demo this evening. We’ve been wanting to try the place out, and the added attraction of being able to play with a whole bunch of Fujifilm cameras and lenses clinched the deal. A local camera store collaborated with Fujifilm to show up with a bunch of their x-trans camera bodies and good cross-section of their lenses. Since I already have the Fujifilm XPro2 camera, I was mostly interested in trying out lenses and the X100f rangefinder camera.

So I had the X100f for about 15 minutes, mostly inside the brewery but also just outside. I figured out the camera pretty quickly and then just made a bunch of handheld photographs, trying a range of techniques and settings to get a feel for the camera. For this image I was interested in seeing how the fixed 23mm f/2 would do with a narrow focus plane (at f/2) and what the resulting bokeh would look like. I think the camera passed the test pretty well.

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

Photographs: France, Photographs: Urban/Street

Restaurant Windows, Benches

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Restaurant Windows, Benches
Two benches outside the windows of a San Francisco restaurant

Restaurant Windows, Benches. San Francisco, California. April 30, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two benches outside the windows of a San Francisco restaurant

At the end of April I spent a couple of hours shooting through the golden hour and on into the evening in San Francisco, mostly exploring along The Embarcadero on the shoreline of San Francisco Bay. Our group first wandered out on a pedestrian pier, where we hung up through sunset and into early twilight as the light faded from the sky and city lights came on.

Soon I left the group — I had a long drive back home — and wandered along the Embarcadero as I headed back to my car. Photographing into restaurant and club windows intrigues me. There is often a striking contrast between the interior world of people having dinner or drinks and the exterior world of very quite urban landscapes. Here a couple of unoccupied benches sit beneath windows, with more colorful lighting and a number of patrons inside.

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+ | LinkedIn | Email

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