Category Archives: Photographs: Urban/Street

Blue Window

Image February 7, 2020 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A blue window and a reflective wall, Manhattan

The circumstances of making this photograph are a bit… unusual. We had the opportunity to enter a building in Manhattan that probably not too many people visit. (I’ll keep the identity anonymous for now. Don’t worry, nothing conspiratorial or anything…) It is an old structure not too far from Grand Central Station. Of course, I had my camera with me, and I took the opportunity to photograph some of the classic architectural features inside. At one point I, uh, had to visit a “very small room” in the building for a moment. This very small room was illuminated by the quite blue light coming from outside. So, naturally, I had to make a photograph. Yes, I was the only person in “the very small room.”

There are lots of ways to look at a photograph like this one, and it could be “about” any of several things. It is about blue, transmitted through glass, reflected on walls, and fading from light to dark. It is about texture — of “obscured glass,” of painted wall, and of reflective tile. I enjoy defocusing from the literal scene and letting the the actual windows and their reflection combine into a larger shape, and create an imagined virtual object on the wall.

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: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Yellow Doorway

Image February 5, 2020 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Yellow light in a doorway along a Manhattan sidewalk at twilight.

As we walked south from midtown to lower Manhattan on this winter day, afternoon turned to early evening, and down along the streets of the city, in the valleys between tall buildings, the light began to feel more and more like evening. As we walked I photographed, looking for light, color, and people that stood out to me. I made most of the photographs on the move, barely pausing long enough to make and exposure and then moving on.

I now barely remember making this exposure. I’m pretty certain it was somewhere in the vicinity fo Chinatown, and it may have actually been within the rough boundaries of that district. I de recall being fascinated — as I often am — by the patterns and textures of the roll-up doors on the closed shops, and by the warm yellow color of the doorway and the light emerging from it.

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Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Flower District, Manhattan

Image February 2, 2020 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Vendors work on sidewalk plant displays on a winter day in Manhattan’s flower dsitrict.

We were in New York City for a week near the end of 2019, visiting family, doing the usual New York stuff, and staying at a hotel located at an intersection in the Manhattan Flower District. If you have visited Manhattan, you are probably familiar with at least some of the various districts, where those in various specific trades congregated — the garment district, the meatpacking district, diamond district, and so on. The idea was that resources were all in one place and everyone knew were to go to find these things. As I understand it, the character of many of these districts is changing, as it does in all large cities, and in some cases the designation is more historic than real these days.

But you can still most certainly find flowers in the Flower District, even if there are now hotels, lounges, restaurants, and fast-food joints among the flower sellers. Every morning as we left our hotel and every evening as we returned we passed by these businesses, traveling along a sidewalk lined with plants and blooming flowers, even though it was winter. Each morning crews were hard at work moving the stock out onto the sidewalks (as you see here) and in the evening it was all moved back inside again.

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Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Urban/Street

Waiting For The Light

Image January 30, 2020 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A crowd queues up for the green light at a busy Manhattan interection.

Perhaps you thought that I was finished with the photographs from our December visit to Manhattan. You’d be wrong! As I’ve written in the past, I love photographing in the dense urban world of Manhattan. In many ways it is the opposite of what I do most often when I head out to photograph in California and the west, where I tend to focus on the more-or-less natural world (though not entirely!) and work at a generally slower and more contemplative pace. Manhattan is intense, with people everywhere, and tons of stuff to see. Much of it happens so quickly that it is “shoot now or miss it!”

I made this photograph in a busy part of Manhattan — Broadway not far below Central Park if I recall correctly — and during the busy holiday period when tons of people are on the streets. I love the great American diversity of Manhattan, where you rub shoulders with just about everyone — rich and poor, locals and tourists, young and old, every language and ethnicity.

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