Tag Archives: windows

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Urban/Street

World Headquarters

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World Headquarters
An abandoned building at the location of a future high tech center, San Jose, California.

World Headquarters. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An abandoned building at the location of a future high tech center, San Jose, California.

You might have to look a bit past the superficial visual constituents of this image to see the world headquarters, but something close to that is coming to this location. Far enough from where I live that it is a very long walk, a major “tech giant” is beginning a long-term project to create a major urban campus. At this point about all one sees is a whole lot of empty lots and abandoned buildings, structures from a much earlier period in the history of this city — homes, small businesses, warehouses, and more. The plan is that a decade from now this will be some sort of ultra-modern, thriving technology center with access to transit and more. We’ll see.

For now though it can be a bit of a photographic playground if your interest includes old, abandoned places and things. I did not investigate closely enough to know what actually went on in this building, but it has the appearance of a small shop or light industrial facility — perhaps automobile repair, some kind of fabrication, or similar. Beyond these associations with an earlier time in this region, it also has the appeal of a nicely weathered look, and some interesting paint colors. On this day the light also proved interesting. In fact, if you look at this the right way, there are — or at least it seems to me — two structures on the scene. One comes from the square angles of the building itself and the other comes from the oblique and curving lines of light and shadow.

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: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Industrial Building Windows

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Industrail Building Windows
Broken, graffiti-scarred windows and walls of an abandoned industrial building.

Industrial Building Windows. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Broken, graffiti-scarred windows and walls of an abandoned industrial building.

All around the San Francisco Bay Area — and, actually, up and down the west coasts — there are sites full of institutional buildings like this one. Some are on military bases, some are old public buildings, and this one is part of a historic ship yard on San Francisco Bay. I think I was sort of peripherally aware of this sort of architecture for decades, but it wasn’t until I started a long project photographing the old Mare Island Naval Ship Yard at night that I really began to notice.

Among these kinds of buildings, this is a young one. I don’t know the actual age, but it seems like a mid-Twentieth-Century building, perhaps from the World War II or post-war period? Now it is abandoned, in a mostly forgotten corner of a much larger facility. I was there to do night photography some years back, arriving early enough to photograph it in the last light before darkness came on.

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

Salzburg Sisters

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Salzburg Sisters
“Salzburg Sisters ” — Two women walking down a cobbled Salzburg street.

There’s a part of me that is tempted to jump over the large number of travel and street photography images that I’m coming across as I traverse my old raw file archive… and move to some of the more familiar scenes from the natural world. But I’m going to continue to (mostly) resist that temptation and double down on these subject a bit longer, at least until I make it through this archive of images from a multi-week European trip back in 2013.

We stayed in Bavaria with family for about a week, just across the border from Salzburg, which we visited on several occasions during our stay. I love narrow streets and figures that quickly appear and disappear, challenging my ability to quickly see and create a photograph. As these women walked ahead of us I had just enough time to bring the camera up to my eye and make three quick exposures as they headed into a very narrow cobbled street.

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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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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: England, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Windows, Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great

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Windows, Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great
Afternoon light enters through windows at the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, London

Windows, Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Afternoon light enters through windows at the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, London

This photograph comes from the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great (what a wonderful name!) in London, photographed on a visit there way back in 2013. As we often do when traveling in places like this, we came upon this subject essentially by accident. We were walking in the vicinity because we had come to look at something else, paused to eat lunch in a pub, then headed outside with no particular goal in mind, saw an interesting doorway down a street, and went in. “Discovering” things by accident seems to be a theme of my approach to travel.

There are a few other things connected to this photograph. First, it is (obvious from the date of the exposure) another of the lost-but-found photographs uncovered from my old raw files as I work my way through them as a pandemic project. Because of a project that some folks are working on, it is also one that features glass as a subject. Finally, the process of working through the old files has reminded me again that “making” a photograph is very much not an act of clicking shutter buttons. It begins with seeing, then to “capture,” but what happens between that and the existence of a final photograph can be a very long and convoluted process.

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 | 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.