Tag Archives: window

Photographs: England, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Brick Walls, Bear Gardens

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Brick Walls, Bear Gardens
Brick buildings along narrow streets, Bear Gardens, Southwark, London

Brick Walls, Bear Gardens. London, England. July 5, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Brick buildings along narrow streets, Bear Gardens, Southwark, London

Yes, another London photograph. We had a bit of time between appointments and we ended up wandering around this area for a while in the evening. Here there are very old brick buildings along narrow streets that twist this way and that. This wall lined up almost perfectly with the setting sun, which glanced across its surface, highlighting the texture and catching an edge of the bricks straight on.

I didn’t share this photograph for a long time. I continued to go back and forth between a black and white rendition — which may allow the forms to seem a bit more abstract — and this version with its warmer colors and more subtle gradations of tones. (On an unrelated topic, why do I keep wanting to write “beer gardens” rather than “bear gardens?” ;-)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Courtyard Window Reflections

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Courtyard Window Reflections
Courtyard Window Reflections

Courtyard Window Reflections. Getty Center, Los Angeles, California. March 28, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Curving window reflects the courtyard of the Getty Center

This curving wall of tinted windows is a favorite subject of mine at the Getty — I have photographed it several times, in fog and rain, with people in front of it, with people behind, and the structure alone. People often move across the courtyard area in front of it on their way to other places, so I can catch people in motion against this background. In fact, one other series from this visit includes a child jumping and hopping his way across. Frequently people will appear momentarily between the columns leading into the distance at the right, too.

This was a very clear day, so the light is crisp and the reflections are very visible in the curving glass. The color of the glass almost reminds me of the water of a swimming pool, and I wonder if the architects thought about this when they designed this aquarium-like rounded building with its many windows.

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: Chicago, Photographs: Urban/Street

Reflections, Chicago

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Reflections, Chicago
Reflections, Chicago

Reflections, Chicago. Chicago, Illinois. August 2, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Distorted reflections on Chicago downtown building windows

Once you start looking at the windows of modern urban towers, you begin to see them in a very different way. Instead of seeming like isolated structures or merely individual architectural forms, they start to relate to their surroundings and to take on changing and whimsical qualities. I first noticed this on my many trips up to San Francisco to photograph in the downtown area, where I became more and more aware of the reflections and the ways that light plays across the buildings and reflects down to the street level from their glass surfaces.

This was a handheld “grab” from the boat on the Chicago architecture cruise we took early one morning. In a way I wish that I had carried a longer lens so that I could have isolated the wild reflections on either the right or the left side, but since I couldn’t I instead decided to go ahead and split them with the section of reflected blue sky.

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: Chicago, Photographs: Urban/Street

Building Reflections

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Building Reflections
Building Reflections

Building Reflections. Chicago, Illinois. August 2, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Distorted reflections in windows of Chicago downtown towers

As I have mentioned in earlier Chicago posts, I like the way that Chicago’s more open urban design provides more opportunities to clearly see the many tall buildings, allow more light to get deeper down into the space, and makes the interactions between the buildings more visible. As with many of the others, I made this photograph from the Chicago River while on the architectural boat tour of the downtown area. This tour offers views of many, many of the downtown towers and other subjects, though it can be a bit tricky to photograph them — they do move past quickly and it is pretty much necessary to shoot handheld.

If I recall correctly (without taking the time to review the sequence of my raw files), I made this photograph somewhere along the south branch of the river, where there was a momentary juxtaposition of the lower building with its visible exterior framing and the much larger glass-encased building with its curving surface on the left side. If you look closely at the photograph you will notice that very little of what you see is the actual structure of buildings, aside from that external skeleton in the lower building and the narrow frames of the windows on the higher one. Virtually everything else in the photograph of the builds is arguably not the buildings but instead is some sort of distorted reflection of its surroundings.

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.