Tag Archives: red

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Construction Zone

Image Leave a comment
Construction Zone
A man walks past construction barriers in San Francisco

Construction Zone. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A man walks past construction barriers in San Francisco.

Like most big cities, San Francisco is in a perpetual state of construction, demolition, and reconstruction. It is fun to imagine a city that arrives in a perfect state and stays there for a while — but that’s not going to happen. Among many San Francisco projects, one of the biggest right now involves constructing an underground transit route under the center of the City, and years of torn up streets have ensued. Although it is possible to imagine the project concluding now, there’s still a lot of work going on.

One major purpose of the route is to extend transit in a more effective manner from the Caltrain station at Fourth and Townsend. I frequently travel to the City by way of the train, and this visit was no exception, so I found myself walking straight up Fourth and past a section where the rails are above ground before they descend into a tunnel. Here the ongoing construction is separated by barriers from the (few) remaining traffic lanes.

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

Red Doors

Image Leave a comment
Red Doors
Red doors, reflective panes, San Francisco

Red Doors. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Red doors, reflective panes, San Francisco.

Here is another photograph from my search for color last week in San Francisco. OK, my main purpose in taking the train up there wan’t literally to search for color — it was to do street photography in this rich urban environment. But the way I see “street” often includes color as an important element. (Sometimes I employ a little mental checklist to keep me focused and flexible when looking for subjects, and the word “color” is one of the points on the list.)

As is often the case, I don’t recall precisely where I found this pair of red doors. (It was quite possibly in the vicinity of San Francisco’s Chinatown district.) Oddly, I do have a rather specific memory of seeing the doors and making the photograph though, a process that included an answer to the question, “How do I avoid putting my own reflection in those windows!?”

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

Climbing The Stairs

Image Leave a comment
Climbing The Stairs
A woman slowly climbs stairs near the entrance to a tunnel, San Francisco

Climbing The Stairs. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A woman slowly climbs stairs near the entrance to a tunnel, San Francisco.

The last time I took one of my quick trips to San Francisco to do street photography was months ago, and I’ve been planning recently to get back up there. Yesterday I finally found time. My photographic ritual there is pretty straightforward: I get up very early and catch a train up the Peninsula, typically arriving by about 7:00am. I travel light, with only the gear that will fit in a very small shoulder bag that doesn’t really look like camera gear. I walk, and this time I wandered close to eight miles over the course of about four hours, traveling through some areas that are run down in interesting ways, through the center of the financial district, and into the Columbus and Grant and Stockton streets areaI.

I enjoy street photography for several reasons. To be honest, as much as I love the natural world, I also love cities, and even more I love wandering through them on foot. Photographically-speaking, they provide a rich lab environment for finding compositions, color, people, and more. Street photography is usually be done unencumbered by the bulky gear I often use for landscapes, and I love the spontaneous aspects of it. This photograph embodies a number of things that I look for when photographing street. I’m always attracted by color and patterns and light — and this scene just inside the end of a tunnel is full of all of these things.

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: Nature

Winter Sky, California

Image Leave a comment
Winter Sky, California
Winter evening sky above the San Joaquin Valley, California

Winter Sky, California. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Winter evening sky above the San Joaquin Valley, California

Photographers sometimes have a complicated relationship with sky. On one hand, quite a few of us tend to minimize its presence in photographs, especially when the sky isn’t special. The sort of blue sky day that seems beautiful to non-photographers (and beautiful to photographers when not making photographs!) often produces a plain blue expanse that can seem empty in a photograph. (Not always. It is also possible to use this in some cases, for example to suggest grand space and distance.) Among my photographer friends, quite a few work to minimize the presence of such skies or even eliminate it entirely — to the point that this can become an inside joke. I’ve heard people refer to certain photographs by one friend as “an extremely rare [insert photographer name] photograph of the sky.”

But sometimes the sky begs to be included, and on occasion it can be the main subject. To generalize, the most interesting skies often come in fall, winter, and perhaps spring in California, when much of the state gets its most interesting weather. (There are opportunities in summer, to — how about a clearing thunderstorm?) I made this sky photograph while I was busy photographing another subject. During a slow moment I looked away from that “other thing” and saw these clouds. I pivoted and made a few exposures, just as the last sunset light was illuminating the undersides of the clouds and already beginning to fade from the highest clouds against the darkest sky.

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.