Category Archives: Photographs: Structures and Objects

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

Ship Yard Structures, Artificial Light and Moonlit Fog

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Ship Yard Structures, Artificial Light and Moonlit Fog
Ship Yard Structures, Artificial Light and Moonlit Fog

Ship Yard Structures, Artificial Light and Moonlit Fog. Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California. April 16, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The light of the full moon illuminates fast-moving fog clouds above Mare Island Naval Ship Yard structures lit by artificial lighting.

Since I haven’t posted photographs of these structures for a while, I’ll share a bit of explanation. The location is the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, across the water from Vallejo, California. Mare Island is a decommissioned ship yard whose history goes way back into the 1800s, when it was the largest naval ship yard on the west coast. There is a ton of history to the place that I only know vaguely, but it was, among other place, the ship yard where a number of nuclear submarines were produced. (That and certain other dangerous residues are also part of the legacy of the place, unfortunately.) The ship yard has not been active since the 1990s, with the exception of some current work to dismantle a ship from the “ghost fleet” parked near the Carquinez Bridge.

The very old buildings and the remnants of some quite large industrial facilities draw night photographers from around the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. (On my recent visit there were three groups photographing the place, including one from Sacramento.) There are almost endless subjects for night photography, ranging from very old to very new buildings, interesting structures like those in this photograph, old residences, and the general clutter found in any industrial area. All of it is lit by a varied array of lights including just about anything you can imagine: the full moon, light from nearby Vallejo, neon, fluorescent, tungsten, sodium vapor and probably other types of light.

In this photograph, huge overhead structures are lit by garish artificial light, while the overhead clouds are lit by the full moon. If I understand correctly, the structures supported huge cranes on tracks, and were used to move very heavy materials to the waterfront for installation in ships. They haven’t been used in a long time, and they are deteriorating in a way that is fascinating to photographers!

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

Construction Lift, Building Interior

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Construction Lift, Building Interior
Construction Lift, Building Interior

Construction Lift, Building Interior. San Francisco, California. July 12, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

I suppose that posting this photograph is the web site equivalent of switching channels – this might be a bit jarring after weeks of Death Valley and other landscape/nature subjects.

I did not quite complete my end-of-year task of going through all of last year’s raw files back in December, so I have been returning to the task bit by bit over the past few weeks. I’m currently working with some photographs from San Francisco, made back in July 2010 when I did some street photography. In old-school style I stuck a 50mm prime on my full frame DSLR and headed out.

At one point I was exploring some waterfront areas of The City and poking my nose into windows of some buildings that were undergoing renovations. Among a few other scenes from this location, I found this one featuring… wait for it!… a piece of construction equipment, posing fetchingly in front of some nice, diffused light coming in from a window out of the frame to the left. I’m still not quite sure why, but I like this image. (Is it perhaps the R2D2-like quality of the orange lift?)

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter (follow me) | Facebook (“Like” my page) | 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: Architecture, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Wooden Building and Stairs in Moonlight

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Wooden Building and Stairs in Moonlight
Wooden Building and Stairs in Moonlight

Wooden Building and Stairs in Moonlight. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. April 16, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The light of the full moon illuminates the facade of a wooden building, and outside stairway, and passing overhead fog clouds at Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.

Since I was out doing night photography this weekend, I’m going to use this as an excuse to insert a night image into the recent stream of Death Valley photographs. (There are more of those, but a bit of variety can’t hurt.) I got an email from Tim Baskerville, the guiding light (guiding dark?) of The Nocturnes, the San Francisco Bay Area night photography group. Tim has introduced and guided many new night photographers over the past few decades, and The Nocturnes group is a sort of loose collective linking together lots of night photographers and providing instruction, online resources, and shows of night photography work. As this is the 20th year for the group, lots of special activities are taking place and this little spontaneous get-together at Mare Island was one of them.

A small story from this weekend’s shoot may illustrate the widespread effect of Tim’s work with night photography in general and with the Mare Island location specifically. Those of us who were to meet Tim at Mare Island arrived to find other photographers already assembled at the indicated meeting place – but we didn’t really recognize most of the group. It turns out that another night photography group (loosely organized, as I understand it, by Thomas Hawk and Ivan Makarov) was going to be there as well. We spoke with them a bit and then they departed for the far end of the island. (They returned later and we worked side by side.) But then, a few minutes later, more vehicles began to show up and we thought that they might be the rest of our group, especially when someone asked “Are you the Nocturnes?” But no, this was a third night photography group, this one out of Sacramento!

In any case, as the light diminished and night came on we started shooting. We had a nearly full moon, which can be a wonderful asset, not so much as a subject (it is very difficult to include the full moon in night shots) but for the beautiful light is sheds on other subjects that might otherwise be very dark. On top of that, we had a combination of some high clouds (which are relatively stationary) and low fog (which creates a nice luminous glow as it quickly passes). I decided to begin the evening’s work by photographing this wooden-sided building and its outside staircase, illuminated by the moonlight, and with a bit of the cloudy sky and faint star trails.

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

Reflections in Curved Window

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Reflections in Curved Window
Reflections in Curved Window

Reflections in Curved Window. San Francisco, California. July 12, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A curved window on the Portside Building reflects a street scene near the San Francisco waterfront.

And now for something quite different from recently posted photographs…

I made this photograph while walking in San Francisco last summer. I’m intrigued by reflections and by scenes holding multiple layers or even multiple layered sub-scenes, so when I found this curved window I had to try to shoot it. For me the first thing I see is the cross-shaped pattern of the metallic bars separating the panes of glass. Looking more closely at what first seems to be just shiny and silver, I see quite a few colors and patterns, especially in the horizontal bars. On the other side of the window is a bit of the interior of the building – a white wall with its own curved shape, the end of a curved cushioned seat, and a dark area opening further into the interior on the right, within which a few shining lights are visible. Then there is the world in the reflections in the glass. (I mostly managed to exclude myself from the reflections, though you might be able to find a bit of me if you look very carefully! ) A person is framed in the lower right quarter of the frame against a background of a warped and curving street and sidewalk. The upper right section features some clearing fog over the Bay and a bit of an overhang in front of the building. The reflections at lower left are faint, though a cross walk can be seen. At upper left is a typical city scene with a traffic signal, wires, and the front of an urban building.

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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.