Tag Archives: windows

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Towers and Sky

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Towers and Sky - Two downtown San Francisco buildings and a patch of clear sky.
Two downtown San Francisco buildings and a patch of clear sky.

Towers and Sky. San Francisco, California. July 9, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two downtown San Francisco buildings and a patch of clear sky.

Whether or not it is apparent, this photograph is the result of some simple shooting and some significant post-processing work. The shot was made handheld during an early evening walk through a portion of San Francisco’s financial district. In addition to looking for the usual street stuff, I was giving my attention to what was above me. I made a series of photographs of very tall buildings, shooting almost straight up and from very close to the bases of the buildings. In “street” style, I was working with a 50mm prime and framing subjects within the constraints of that lens. (Since the subject comes up in this context from time to time… no, I’m not making any statement about the “right” lens to use for street. Sometimes I just like to work with a prime. Sometimes I like to work with a zoom. Sometimes I like both!)

When photographing these subjects in this way, the vertical shooting angle and closeness to the buildings can eliminate the reflections of other buildings and let each structure be seen apart from its surroundings to some extent. In this photograph, the windows (almost) do not reflect anything but sky. In order to emphasize the presence of those windows I chose to apply a blue (!) filter in post, which also had the effect of making the sky almost perfectly white, especially after some curves adjustments. I applied a few other processes as well to get the look I was after here – but those can be my secret!

For probably 90% or more of my photography, I’m pretty much a tripod kind of guy. Working without the tripod, walking through urban areas, and responding somewhat quickly (as least compared to some of my landscape work) to subjects, and then moving on – all of this can be a welcome change from my more typical shooting style.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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: Abstract, Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Imaginary Landscapes, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

One Front Street, San Francisco

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IOne Front Street, San Francisco - maginary (urban) landscape based on the facade of the One Front Street building, San Francisco
Imaginary (urban) landscape based on the facade of the One Front Street building, San Francisco

One Front Street, San Francisco. San Francisco, California. July 9, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Imaginary (urban) landscape based on the facade of the One Front Street building, San Francisco.

This is another in a short series of photographs I did earlier this month in which I focused on shooting very close to the base of some downtown San Francisco buildings, aiming the camera nearly straight up in order to see their shapes more abstractly, and then working fairly freely in post to modify the images in ways that I felt were interesting. This one, and some of the others, are subject to enough post-processing that they probably fit into the category that I describes as “imaginary landscapes.)

I imagine that architects who create such things understand these buildings in ways far different from this in which the rest of us see them. A few things, likely completely obvious to the building designers, occurred to me. One, obvious now that I see it, is that the visual character of the buildings themselves is formed as much by what they reflect of their surroundings as it is by their own shape, texture, and material. Most of what constitutes this photograph, for example, is not the building itself (which is largely defined by the narrow non-reflecting portions) but by what in the surrounding environment is reflected on its surface and how those reflections are shaped and modified by the reflecting surface of the building. In this case, the building reflects itself in the right angles such as the one in the center of this shot, along with the sky, and sometimes the surrounding buildings. (Though the latter is removed when you aim the camera up so sharply.)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Embarcadero Center Tower

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Embarcadero Plaza Tower - Black and white rendition of Embarcadero Plaza Tower, San Francisco.
Black and white rendition of Embarcadero Plaza Tower, San Francisco.

Embarcadero Center Tower. San Francisco, California. July 9, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white rendition of Embarcadero Plaza Tower, San Francisco.

This may be a bit of a rude shock after all of the recent nature images, but here we go. I made this photograph in early July while spending a couple days in San Francisco. On the first afternoon I went out armed primarily with a, uh, 50mm prime, and I found myself interested in photographing the tall downtown buildings from very close up and with somewhat steep upward angles so that I could accentuate the converging perspective lines. (Some of the others in this series will be significantly abstract interpretations of these subjects.)

I made this while walking “through” the row of Embarcadero Center buildings. It was quite close to sunset, so the shadows were beginning to fill a bit more with light than they would during the middle of the day, when the light and shadows are more harsh. However, since I was shooting in shadows and low light, I ended up hand holding the camera at a fairly low shutter speed since I need a relatively small aperture for depth of field, especially since I decided to let the two overhead support beams intrude into the space of the taller building. This image was also the result of some significant work in the post-processing stage, including the application of a blue filter layer (to get the sky to blow out to white) and a blurred overlay layer.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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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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: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Moonlit Stairs and Windows

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Moonlit Stairs and Windows - Metal staircase and wood framed windows on an old building at the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, photographed under the light of the full moon.
Metal staircase and wood framed windows on an old building at the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, photographed under the light of the full moon.

Moonlit Stairs and Windows. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, California. April 16, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Metal staircase and wood framed windows on an old building at the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, photographed under the light of the full moon.

This month I have had the opportunity to return to the ongoing task for filing through older raw files to see what I missed the first time around. (The task also leads to deleting some files that I originally held on to.) For me this is an important ritual, as I often accidentally “leave behind” some photographs when I first review them – either I get to busy and move on before I fully explore them, or in some cases I simply don’t yet “see” the photograph when I look at it too soon after making it. I have a theory about the latter issue. Sometimes I think I’m so invested in what I hoped or thought the photograph would be that I fail to see what it really is, at least until I’ve waited a while.

The subject of this photograph is the exterior of a building at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard in Vallejo, a place that I have photographed only in the dark! I have worked with this building before. It is superficially a pretty uninteresting structure, but some of the unusual exterior stairways become interesting compositionally when illuminated by moonlight as in this photograph. I’ll share a few odd technical details about this one, too. The exposure time was nearly 8 minutes! And the capture was still underexposed. Since I cannot meter a scene like this, I often make my first exposure based on some sort of educated hunch – and I guess I just couldn’t imagine that I’d have to stand there any longer than this! Of course, because of the distance between the close-in railing and the far portions of the upper story, I had to use a small aperture of f/16. And being concerned about noise I shot at ISO 200. In the dark. Right. So one reason that I think I neglected to work with this file was that it seemed underexposed – OK, it was underexposed, even given the very dark subject of the scene. However, when I began to work with the raw file I discovered that I could push it the equivalent of several stops and the image would still hold good quality without obtrusive noise. I like the odd combination of shapes and angles, and in the end I think the very dark interpretation is actually the right one for this subject.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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.