Tag Archives: windows

Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Urban/Street

Buttnick Mfg. Co.

October 9, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

A person wearing a backpack walks in front of the Buttnick Mfg. Co. building in Seattle, Washington

OK, I admit that this isn’t perhaps an easy photograph to warm up to and, yes, the guy is way out of focus. As often happens when wandering the streets of some city – or, frankly, with other kinds of photography, too – one thing caught my attention and once I looked I saw other things… and then there was an unexpected accident. Despite rumors to the contrary, sometimes photography works that way. (To reassure some of you, photographs also work the opposite way sometimes – carefully thought out and made in a state of prolonged contemplation.)

As we walked past this corner, for some reason the name “Buttnick Mfg. Co.” caught my attention all by itself. This, and the visual appearance of the sign got me thinking about how the presentation and appearance of commercial entities has changed. Today, if “Buttnick Mfg. Co.” was starting up in this part of Seattle or almost any other relatively large city, there would be plastic signs, a carefully contrived sign designed to present and foster a particular way of viewing the firm, electronic lights, and probably a motto along the lines of, “Innovative Design and Manufacturing for Today’s Buttnick Buyer.” But this sign was probably painted by some local sign-painter and it offers nothing more than the name of the company, which is probably the name of the founder and perhaps someone who actually worked there. But, urban development being what it is, it looks to me like Buttnick is probably no longer to be found, and instead we see a group of smaller shops inside the building. (There now are electronic signs in the window and there is a SALE going on.) About that person in the photograph… while I was planning to include the people on the far side of the street as they walked in front of the building, the out-of-focus, photobombing, Seattle street person was entirely accidental – but somehow appropriate.

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Photographs: Austria, Photographs: Urban/Street

Narrow Street, Cyclist

September 28, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A bicyclist disappears around a corner on narrow cobbled streets of Salzburg, Austria

During our July 2013 three-week travels to London and parts of Germany and Austria, we ended up in Salzburg on several occasions – despite the fact that we weren’t actually staying there. We spent a week near Berchtesgaden in Bavaria, staying with a bunch of family members at a rambling old farmhouse. We spent most of the time there in Bavaria, but on a couple of occasions we ended up in nearby Salzburg, plus out train arrived at and departed from the Salzburg station.

The old part of Salzburg combines, as many places we visited also did, some beautiful old history and lots of very wonderful old places with a whole lot of touristy stuff! I wonder how Mozart might react to discover that fast food places are now a short distance from the place in which he was born! Several times we walked away from the main, popular area and walked through some narrow and twisty streets leading away from the tourist sites. As we walked down this narrow and curving street, a cyclist suddenly passed by, and I had just enough time to lift the camera and shoot as he leaned around the corner at the end of the street.

Deals and Sales

Lightroom 5 $50 Off for 24 Hours Only

August 29, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

I just was alerted that B&H has a 24 hour-only $50 off on Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 sale. It is available for both Mac and Windows. If you have been waiting, this might be a good opportunity to act!

NOTE: There was a problem with this link when I first posted it, but it should work now.

Photographs: Germany

Bicycles, Heidelberg

July 31, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Bicycles parked against the wall of a building of the Heidelberg University, Germany

There are many things that seem to characterize Heidelberg, especially the old portion of the town: the historic character of the buildings, the crowds of visitors, the university, the very young population, and the huge number of bicycles. A hint: it sees that the last three items in that list are related. It seems like everyone is riding a bicycle, the vast majority of which are similar sorts of very practical bikes, and not so much the racing bikes or mountain bikes that I tend to see in the US. Folks seem to use them to get everywhere – school, work, shopping, out to meet friends. Given this, it isn’t surprising that bicycles are also parked nearly everywhere, sometimes in huge numbers and other times in small groups, as in this photograph. (It took me a few close calls to figure out that there are bike lanes marked on some of the sidewalks in Heidelberg – I never did completely develop instincts for this while I was there.)

This group of the ubiquitous “work” bikes was parked outside a building belonging to Heidelberg University. The bikes themselves often seem interesting to me, but this little scene was also full of the sorts of features and details that always attract my attention – the colorful patterns of the building, along with its geometrical shapes, the cobbled street and sidewalk with rows of stones leading toward the entry door and the curve of the lighter stones separating sidewalk and street.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: windows

Buttnick Mfg. Co.

Narrow Street, Cyclist

Lightroom 5 $50 Off for 24 Hours Only

Bicycles, Heidelberg

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.