Category Archives: Photographs: Structures and Objects

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

Abandoned Building, Poles, Sky

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Abandoned Building, Poles, Sky
Utility poles in front of an abandoned brick building.

Abandoned Building, Poles, Sky. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Utility poles in front of an abandoned brick building.

This is one of my occasional walking-around photographs. I like to walk, and I done this even more during the pandemic when local walks were much more possible than drives to more distant locations. I always carry a small camera that fits in the little bag I carry on these forays. (The camera is a small rangefinder-style camera fitted with a single very small prime lens.) On most walks the camera stays in the bag, but every so often I see something that catches my eye… and I’m happy that I brought it along.

I have traveled past this spot for decades. Long ago it was part of a busy cannery run by a major company. (We could spell the aroma of incipient tomato paste and sauce from this factory miles away.) Those days are gone, and the area now features a growing collection of high density urban housing, but some of the buildings still remain. I think of this photograph as an urban landscape, and the inclusion of that sky and those clouds perhaps makes the connection more obvious.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Closed Fountain

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Closed Fountain
A brick wall behind a fountain closed by the pandemic.

Closed Fountain. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A brick wall behind a fountain closed by the pandemic.

If it seems like there have been a lot of black and white photographs here recently, well, yes. I’m not certain why that is, but I do know that I began as a black and white photographer, and somehow seeing in monochrome remains at my visual core.

This photograph comes from a visit to a location we visited in order fo photograph a very different sort of subject — a beautiful (mostly) formal garden full of blossoming flowers. We went there after both of us had arrived at that wonderful point two weeks after being fully vaccinated, and it was liberating to wander (masked) through the gardens. However, somehow, among those beautiful and colorful flowers, this is what I came home with! I’m tempted to offer explanations and propose a few metaphors to consider as you view the image, but since I wasn’t really consciously thinking of them when I made the photograph, I’ll just leave the photograph here and let you decide.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Industrial Building Windows

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Industrail Building Windows
Broken, graffiti-scarred windows and walls of an abandoned industrial building.

Industrial Building Windows. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Broken, graffiti-scarred windows and walls of an abandoned industrial building.

All around the San Francisco Bay Area — and, actually, up and down the west coasts — there are sites full of institutional buildings like this one. Some are on military bases, some are old public buildings, and this one is part of a historic ship yard on San Francisco Bay. I think I was sort of peripherally aware of this sort of architecture for decades, but it wasn’t until I started a long project photographing the old Mare Island Naval Ship Yard at night that I really began to notice.

Among these kinds of buildings, this is a young one. I don’t know the actual age, but it seems like a mid-Twentieth-Century building, perhaps from the World War II or post-war period? Now it is abandoned, in a mostly forgotten corner of a much larger facility. I was there to do night photography some years back, arriving early enough to photograph it in the last light before darkness came on.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

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

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Railings and Fog, Battery Spencer

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Railings and Fog, Battery Spencer
“Railings and Fog, Battery Spencer” — Fog at the historic Battery Spencer, Marin Headlands

There are old forts and batteries all over the West Coast and especially around the San Francisco Bay Area. Many of them have long histories, though we tend to associate them with World War II, the most recent time when the country through they might be put to use. I know of a number of these sites, but I’m most familiar with those in the Marin Headlands, across the Golden Gate to the north of San Francisco. If you have visited a particular and iconic overlook of the famous bridge you have likely been near to this place.

It is one thing to visit these spots on a sunny day when they are overrun with visitors. But if you go early on a cold and foggy morning you may bet a better sense of what it might have been like to be stationed at one of these sites. When I visited on this fogged-in morning, I was attracted by the relationships and angles of the railings.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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