A window at the end of a dark hallway looks out on rain and fog at the Getty Center, Los Angeles, California.
Escaping the rain and fog briefly, I wandered down a side hallway in the main rotunda at the Getty and saw this window at the end, with diffused light on the outside walkway, columns, fence, and other structures and blank fog and rain beyond. I like the contrast between the symmetry of the windows and the asymmetrical shapes outside, the converging perspective lines, the way the relatively brighter light on the outside structures goes almost completely white, and the reflected light in the interior walls.
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.
Black and white photograph of the interior of a donut shop late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve.
As in many photographs like this, I hope that there may be more to it than meets the eye. I won’t tell the whole story, but here is a bit of background. I had been involved in an online discussion of the merits of shooting “old school” street photography using primes, and specifically limiting oneself to a 50mm prime on a 35mm film camera. Though it isn’t the point of my post here, I’ll just say that I’m skeptical about the value of that sort of limitation given a whole bunch of boring photographic philosophy. In any case, as an outgrowth of that discussion I thought it would be fun to head out on foot armed only with my full-frame camera (sorry, no film camera at all these days!) and a 50mm prime and just see what I could come up with. So, I walked out my front door and did some photography.
It was late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, so few businesses were still open, and it was late enough in the day that the last-minute shopping traffic was diminishing and things were becoming rather quiet. Few people were even out walking. I mostly walked but I also photographed some shop windows and buildings and so forth, and when I passed this tiny donut shop I first did an exterior shot of the closed business that included a weathered wooden and brick wall and some sad-looking holiday lights. Then as I passed the front of the shop I decided to put my nose against the window and peer inside. The low light from the late-afternoon sun was directly behind me and casting some very harsh and flat light into the interior, but I was intrigued by the arrangement and shapes of the tables and chairs, the shadow cast by the Christmas ornaments hanging in the window, and by the odd juxtaposition of a poster of the work of a certain photographer that is barely visible on the wall.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Black and white photograph of converging lines of downtown San Francisco buildings with cloudy sky.
On this “urban landscape” I went with a wide focal length and decided to just let those perspective lines go right ahead and converge! The photograph was made on a morning walk up the lower part of Market Street as the fog began to clear back from the bay.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Photograph of shadowed wall in a sunlit interior space with diagonal forms in downtown San Francisco.
For better or worse, I almost never discard my RAW files – I have tens of thousands of them on my hard drives. The way I look at it, hard drives storage space is cheap, and I know that I occasionally find an interesting photograph among some of the older stuff. This week I’ve been dealing with “computer issues” – installing a new hard drive, changing my backup strategy, and giving the Lightroom beta a try. Setting up Lightroom involved importing tens of thousands of images into that program’s environment, and along the way I saw some older stuff appear including a series of photographs I made while walking around in San Francisco three years ago. I remember being interested in this one back then, but it simply fell off the “to do” list as I worked on other things.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
keywords: wall, window, board, diagonal, light, shadow, reflection, shape, structure, interior, building, downtown, san francisco, california, usa, architecture, vertical, horizontal, urban, street, city, travel, form, detail, stock
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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