Category Archives: Photographs: Urban/Street

Photographs: Night, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Outside The Vesuvio Cafe

Image Leave a comment
Outside The Vesuvio Cafe
A lone man stands outside the entrace to a cafe in a graffiti-covered San Francisco alley at night

Outside The Vesuvio Cafe. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A lone man stands outside the entrace to a cafe in a graffiti-covered San Francisco alley at night.

The end of Daylight Savings Time — which I look forward to every year! — opens up additional night opportunities for me, especially with it comes to night street photography. I live close enough to San Francisco that I can get there and back by rail, which is a better option in most cases than driving, provided that I can return before it gets too late. Now that the sun is setting at close to 5:00 PM I have time to photograph twilight and early darkness — typically the best time for this sort of photography — and still catch a reasonably early train back home.

This week I took advantage of this change for the first time this fall, heading up to The City to arrive there in the early afternoon, photographing for a few hours in daylight (albeit muted by fog), and then sticking around as day changed to night. Photographing in such a location is almost visually overwhelming. There are details everywhere — people, shops, passing traffic, buildings, and more — and it can be hard to make visual sense out of them. On top of that, everything is in a constant state of flux, so there is often little time to carefully consider a photography. Instead, one operates by instinct, working quickly and knowing that only a small percentage of exposures will be worthwhile. As I walked up toward the North Beach area I looked up an alley and spotted this fellow standing alone in this graffiti-covered alley as the artificial lighting began to supplant the natural light.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Wolfe

Image Leave a comment
Wolfe
An old eating establishment in a rapidly gentrifying area of San Francisco

Wolfe. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An old eating establishment in a rapidly gentrifying area of San Francisco.

Today you get a San Francisco photograph — since that’s where I’ve been hanging out for most of the past week or so. I am a member of Studio Nocturne, a group of photographers who do night photography. The group has a history going back several decades, and I’ve been working with them for the past decade or so. My night photography has evolved over that time — back in about 2003 when I first explored the genre I was photographing what I think of as “industrial landscapes” of abandoned industrial sites. More recently I found that small digital cameras allow me to photograph with a handheld camera in urban settings, and I’ve been adding night street photography to the mix.

To get back to this building… our open studio was in the Potrero district, at the edge of an area that has long housed things like warehouses, industrial concerns, and so forth. Like pretty much all of San Francisco, this area is rapidly losing its former character as it is taken over by condominiums and newer business that serve the new residences. This place, whose signs describe it as a place to get sandwiches, undoubtedly once served the working folks in the area, and time will tell whether or not it manages to find a clientele among the new residents. Meanwhile, when I’m in “The City” I make a point of photographing these places, many of which may no longer be there in a few years.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Oh See!

Image Leave a comment
Oh See!
An old neon sign in full sun.

Oh See! © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An old neon sign in full sun.

I try to take (almost) daily walks in various areas around the South San Francisco Bay Area — occasionally trail walks, but more often just neighborhood walks that take me through residential areas, business districts, and locations where various companies have their warehouses and workspaces. Although I almost always bring a camera along, I usually don’t stop to photograph. But every so often I am glad that I lugged the thing along. (If nothing else, carrying a camera changes my orientation to my surroundings and forces me to see more and more clearly.)

This business sign has been at this location for a very long time. The surrounding neighborhood is rapidly changing as the area converts from older business (and, at one time, extensive cannery facilities) to more urbanized tenants: shopping centers, condominium/apartment buildings, and similar. But the history is only part of what fascinated me about this sign. It also presented a sort of visual puzzle, in which the shadows of the old neon tubes produce a sort of synthetic alphabet on top of the less-legible lettering.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Window Maze

Image Leave a comment
Window Maze
Cubist patterns of color, reflections, and perspective in the windows of a San Francisco builiding

Window Maze. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Cubist patterns of color, reflections, and perspective in the windows of a San Francisco builiding.

Continuing with the theme of “windows,” here is another photograph I recently made while walking in San Francisco. My San Francisco ambling typically has a general structure — I usually arrive at the Fourth Street Caltrain Station early in the morning, then typically start walking north (often along the waterfront, though not on this visit). I photograph as I go, and eventually reach a turn-around point, where I start back towards the train station on a different route.

I made this photograph on that return walk, and I was actually in a bit of a hurry — I had just enough time to get to the station and board before my train was to leave, and missing it would have meant an hour wait. These windows caught my attention and I paused very briefly to make two exposures. The objective reality of the scene is simple — a couple of “window walls” joining at a corner — but the subjective effect is quite complex and wild, with confusing combinations of elements (the windows themselves, what lies inside, and things behind me in the reflections), perspective lines, and color.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.