Tag Archives: windows

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Windows, Ramp, and Asphalt

Leave a comment
Windows, Ramp, and Asphalt - The side of a metal building with windows reflecting an asphalt parking area with painted lines, Seattle, Washington
The side of a metal building with windows reflecting an asphalt parking area with painted lines, Seattle, Washington. The side of a metal building with windows reflecting an asphalt parking area with painted lines, Seattle, Washington

Windows, Ramp, and Asphalt. Seattle, Washington. May 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The side of a metal building with windows reflecting an asphalt parking area with painted lines, Seattle, Washington.

This is the third in the short series of urban geometry photographs from my early May visit to Seattle, on which I had an hour (only an hour!) to photograph in the Fremont District with a group on a Seattle Photo Walk. After starting in “downtown” Fremont, meeting up at the Lenin statue, wandering over beneath the Aurora Bridge, and walking back along the waterfront, I climbed the stairs to another bridge that took me back toward my starting point.

This bridge turned out to be an interesting subject and vantage point. I made a few photographs of the bridge itself, mostly focusing on details, but for the most part those did not end up being images that I’ll share. However, once I got up on the bridge and started to walk across it, the vantage point it provide across the tops of buildings and down into areas below was interesting. The subject of this photograph is probably some of the most banal looking office space around, especially since I narrowed the composition down to simply showing a wall, some windows, a bit of concrete, the shadow of the bridge on which I was standing, and a painted out section of an asphalt parking area. It is what it is, and you get to figure out what that might be! :-)

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: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: People, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Bicycle Rider, Brick Wall

Leave a comment
Bicycle Rider, Brick Wall - A bicycle rider in orange rides past a brick wall, Seattle, Washington
A bicycle rider in orange rides past a brick wall, Seattle, Washington

Bicycle Rider, Brick Wall. Seattle, Washington. May 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A bicycle rider in orange rides past a brick wall, Seattle, Washington.

This is going to be the first in a small series of photographs from Seattle, Washington that focus on what might be described as urban geometry – odd or interesting juxtapositions of shapes and colors and so forth. I made this photograph back in early May when I joined a group of Seattle photographers for a “Seattle Photo Walk” in the Fremont District. I had only an hour to shoot, but I managed to work intensely for that hour and come back with some stuff that is interesting to me in one way or another.

One thing that I enjoy about photographing the urban environment is that potential subjects come and go almost constantly and often last only for a brief instant. I have to react so fast that I certainly cannot see everything in the frame in a conscious way while making the photograph, though there is something to be said for perhaps have an intuitive understanding of what is there. When I made this photograph I was walking along a bridge the heads back into Seattle’s Fremont district. I had been looking at these brick buildings which feign being old – they are actually new but with old-looking brick walls. The geometry of the buildings attracted me, but I hadn’t really seen a photograph in them at this point. Then, as I looked, I saw the cyclist coming along wearing this very bright orange shirt and helmet and wearing an orange pack. I quickly framed up a composition that included the building, the walkway, and a portion of the road and then waited for the rider to enter the frame. As he passed through I quickly squeezed off three frames. In two of them, a car obscures the cyclist, but in the final one, taken just before he exited the frame, he is all alone against the patterns of the road and the building. (I didn’t notice until later the windows reflected in the middle row of windows on the building.)

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

Visual Puzzle with Tree

Leave a comment
Visual Puzzle with Tree - A tree with early spring greenery against a backdrop of the reflecting windows of downtown San Francisco buildings.
A tree with early spring greenery against a backdrop of the reflecting windows of downtown San Francisco buildings.

Visual Puzzle with Tree. San Francisco, California. April 20, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A tree with early spring greenery against a backdrop of the reflecting windows of downtown San Francisco buildings.

On a mid-April walk though portions of downtown San Francisco to make photographs, while passing through the financial district I was these branches with new spring leaves juxtaposed with a conjunction of building angles, reflected and distorted light, and colors that created a wild abstraction.

The urban environment often holds visual attractions that are not always immediately scene and which sometimes require one to look past the more obvious grit and turmoil. (Those, too, can be a photographic subject… but not this time.) In downtown concrete canyons with glass covered buildings, there is a constantly varying world of wild distortions and conjunctions and perspectives. If you think about it, very little of what you think you see in this photograph is really  “there.” The thing the fills the largest portion of the frame is a crazily distorted reflection of other building and sky, fractured and bent by the distortions from the glass – in essence you don’t really see this building at all!

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: Textures, Photographs: Urban/Street

Building Facade, Reflections

Leave a comment
Building Facade, Reflections - The facade of a San Francisco building reflects the image of nearby buildings and the sky.
The facade of a San Francisco building reflects the image of nearby buildings and the sky.

Building Facade, Reflections. San Francisco, California. April 20, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The facade of a San Francisco building reflects the image of nearby buildings and the sky.

I enjoy looking for reflections in large, glass-facade downtown buildings in San Francisco and other urban centers. I find the reflections fascinating, especially when they hold complete images of other buildings or sky, the way that they acquire various distortions, and when the reflections begin to visually merge with the image of the building itself.

I spotted this building as the train approached the Fourth and Townsend Caltrain Station in San Francisco, so by the time the train stopped I had figured out that I needed to wander on over to this spot to see if I could find a photograph. I made a bee-line for the general area of the building that I had seen, and I soon figured out who to put together an image that included a wide range of materials: the building itself, the interior spaces beyond the window glass, the reflections of sky and clouds, and more. I especially like the bits of orange reflection from a building behind my camera position.

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.