Category Archives: Photographs: Northern California

Photographs from Northern California

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

Building 45, Rain and Shadows

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Building 45, Rain and Shadows - Black and white night photograph of Building 45 with rain and shadows, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard
Black and white night photograph of Building 45 with rain and shadows, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard

Building 45, Rain and Shadows. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, California. November 17, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white night photograph of Building 45 with rain and shadows, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard

Having shot at Mare Island so many times, and having never encountered any weather challenges more daunting than a little wind or some night-time cold, I suppose I was due for some rain. And we got it on this visit. This being the annual “Nocturnes Alumni Night” event, people arrived much earlier than necessary for night photography – during the daylight hours mostly. As we met and shared photographs and then pizza, the conversation occasionally turned to the question of, “When will the weather front arrive tonight?” The most optimistic among us thought that it might not rain at all. Others thought it would hold off until after we were done shooting. Still others – including those of us with smart phones running weather radar applications – were not so sure that we would escape the weather this time, since it looked like the front would pass over us very shortly after we planned to start shooting.

The pessimists were right this time! Less than a half hour after we dispersed into the darkness to begin our work, it was already sprinkling, and within a few more minutes the front arrived and it began to rain in earnest. Along with another group of Nocturnes, I quickly moved to the shelter of one of the old mansions and hung out on the porch. The front wasn’t large, and after an hour or so the rain had diminished to the point that I could venture back out again. (To those who wonder about such things, the combination of night and rain is not conducive to being out and about making photographs.) I headed back over into the “historic core” area near the waterfront as the sprinkles continued, eventually ending up at this spot, near the end of building 45. Access wasn’t as easy as usual due to construction in the area and due to that darned rain! However, the rain created special conditions for night photography, adding a reflective gleam to all of the wet surfaces. The lighting here is from nearby street lights and security lights, and the sodium vapor lamps create a very garish yellow effect in color photographs – so I decided that I would take this one in the black and white direction. The patter on the wall at the right is a shadow from the huge gantry structure that towers above this spot.

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

Stairway, Rain

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Stairway, Rain - Black and white photograph of a stairway and a portion of a front wall of a building on a rainy evening at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California
Black and white photograph of a stairway and a portion of a front wall of a building on a rainy evening at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California

Stairway, Rain. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. November 17, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of a stairway and a portion of a front wall of Building 45 on a rainy evening at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California

I interrupt the almost-steady stream of landscape photographs from the American Southwest (of which there are many more to come) to share a photograph of night photography at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard near Vallejo, California. Depending upon where you see/read this, you may not know that I have been photographing this place at night for a half-dozen years or more, joining a large number of other night photographers who continue to be fascinated by the place. The San Francisco Bay Area group known as The Nocturnes has been instrumental in uncovering the photographic potential of this wonderful location and in ensuring its respectful treatment by photographers, and I was there with them again this week. I’m certain that many people who drive past and see “Mare Island” signs have no idea of how long this place has existed (well back into the 1800s) nor of its historic importance (the first US west coast major ship yard) or some of its “issues,” including the transition from the military to civilian uses and all of the things that this entails.

The whole area, but especially that around the “historic core,” is quite an amazing photographic resource, especially for those who have worked to “see” it at night. There are a number of obvious, impressive, and iconic features – the gantry structures, the power plant, many old buildings, dry docks, and more – yet return visits begin to reveal smaller and subtler features that you could miss on a single visit. There was one wrinkle in this week’s shoot – RAIN! When we assembled there before sunset – for photograph sharing and talk – we knew that a weather front was headed our way, but we hoped that it might hold off long enough to let us complete some shooting first. I wasn’t so sure. (The weather radar app showed a front very close to us!) As soon as it was dark enough, I quickly went to work at this building that I had seen earlier in the day when I arrived. It was already beginning to sprinkle when I got there, and soon the rain increased to the point where I had to work under an umbrella as I completed some relatively long exposures. (For real fun, try juggling camera, lenses, bags, tripod, and an umbrella… in increasing wind… and rain… while trying to attach camera to said tripod and compose and focus!) I had time to make five or six photographs at this location before I had to seek shelter along with my Nocturnes colleagues on the front porch of one of the old officers’ mansions.

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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Frost-Rimmed Oak Leaves, Autumn

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Frost-Rimmed Oak Leaves, Autumn - A very cold autumn morning brings a touch of frost to late-fall oak leaves in Yosemite Valley
A very cold autumn morning brings a touch of frost to late-fall oak leaves in Yosemite Valley

Frost-Rimmed Oak Leaves, Autumn. Yosemite Valley, California. November 13, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A very cold autumn morning brings a touch of frost to late-fall oak leaves in Yosemite Valley

Earlier this week I had (just barely) enough time for a very quick one-day up-and-back visit to Yosemite Valley. Such a visit, entailing a four-hour drive each way, and beginning with a 3:30 a.m. alarm going off, is not completely fun in all imaginable ways… but I won’t complain in front of people who might regard a visit to this valley as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I’m fortunate to live where I’m able to get to such a place and back in a day. The reason for the quick visit was that I had not made my annual “autumn leaves” visit to the Valley. In a typical year I do that right around the first of November (though I often think of it as a Halloween trip!) when the maple, oak, and dogwood leaves can be very colorful. I thought that I had missed the show this year, but over the weekend I heard from friends that there were still leaves in The Valley, so I figured that I would try to get up there for a quick visit.

Having gone there for decades, I no longer go straight for the usual iconic subjects – though I will photograph them when the conditions are extraordinary. Instead, I often end up poking around in odd corners, looking for things that are smaller and less easily seen, but which I associate with The Valley just as much as, say, Half Dome or El Capitan or Yosemite Falls. So, odd as it may seem, when I made my first stop of the day at El Capitan Meadow, with its iconic views of Sentinel Rocks and El Capitan on opposite sides of The Valley… I spent the first 15 minutes with my lens pointed down into a small patch of the Merced River where there were some interesting reflections, and then I wandered off along the river bank in a few inches of snow to photograph close-up views of the wonderful oak leaves rimmed with morning frost. It occurred to me later that some might think it is a bit odd to drive so far to photograph such things!

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.
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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: Events, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Northern California

Dawn, Waiting for Endeavour

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Dawn, Waiting for Endeavour - Early crowds at dawn, lining up to view the space shuttle Endeavour fly over the NASA/Ames Moffett Field facility
Early crowds at dawn, lining up to view the space shuttle Endeavour fly over the NASA/Ames Moffett Field facility

Dawn, Waiting for Endeavour. NASA Ames Moffett Airfield, California. September 21, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early crowds at dawn, lining up to view the space shuttle Endeavour fly over the NASA/Ames Moffett Field facility

I’ve posted enough photographs of the space shuttle Endeavour on its flyover of the NASA Ames Moffett Field – here is a photograph of some of the people who showed up to see the event. The place opened its gates at 6:00 a.m., which is well before sunrise in California at this time of year. I left home at about that time and took public transit, arriving just about the time of sunrise. I joined the growing throng arriving at Moffett. Quite a few came by car, but many also came on foot, walking from the nearby light rail stations or from their cars that they had parked in nearby Mountain View.

Once on the base the decisions were pretty straightforward – to stop of breakfast, coffee and souvenirs or to head straight out to the edge of the runway to take up a position hours in advance of the flyover. I made a quick stop for coffee, but decided to forego souvenirs and the available food-truck breakfasts (as good as they looked), and headed straight out onto the runway. There was a crowd already near the entrance area, but much of the runway was still open, especially further down toward the old Hangar One, where I found a position right along the barricades next to the runway. For the next few hours, people mostly hung out – talking, making photographs, checking cell phones, and so on – as the sun rose and the anticipate built. The photograph shows a small portion of the crowd right near sunrise, when the shadows were still long and most people had not yet arrived. The skeleton of the historic Hangar One is at the far left.

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.