Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: San Francisco

Ocean Beach, Winter Surf

February 19, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Black and white photograph of winter surf along Ocean Beach, San Francisco, California.

On a day like this one it was hard to resist shooting from an obvious spot like this – right by the Cliff House, looking south along the incoming winter surf at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach. With the strong backlight coming through the ocean spray and overcast and fog, the light was very diffused, and it made it possible to shoot directly into the otherwise impossibly bright direct reflections of the sun on the surf. A lot of what is in this photograph is subtle, and you might miss it in this small on-screen image – but look for the very faint outline of the distant hills of the San Francisco Peninsula and the subtle differences in tonality in the cloudy sky.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: san francisco, california, usa, sutro, baths, cliff, ocean, sea, coast, shore, pacific, surf, travel, scenic, beach, waves, foam, seascape, landscape, people, beach, sand, mountain, hill, great, highway, sky, clouds, mist, spray, haze, silhouette, atmosphere, recession, winter, season, stock, black and white

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

Nimitz Avenue, Tower and Buildings

February 18, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Tower, buildings, and power plant smokestack along Nimitz Avenue, Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California.

One more, and perhaps the last, in the current series of Mare Island night photographs made with The Nocturnes during the first weekend of February. This scene is one that is well-known to Mare Island night photographers – a row of industrial buildings in the “historic core” of the old shipbuilding facility where huge overhead steel structures run between the machine shops and the old docks. In this photograph I decided to more or less shoot through the base of one of these giant towers. The scene is illuminated by bright and colorful artificial light and the photograph required an exposure of about a minute and a half. (I cheated and shot the 5D2 at ISO 200.) Though they may be hard to see in the small jpg, some star trails are visible in the sky near the smokestack of the old power plant.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: mare, island, naval, ship, yard, historic, vallejo, california, usa, nocturnes, night, photography, structures, nimitz, avenue, street, railroad, track, puddle, water, reflection, tower, steel, yellow, ladder, industrial, rust, core, brick, wall, window, door, roof, asphalt, north america, sky, star, trails, cyclone, fence, smokestack, power, plant, stock

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

Building 417, Green Shadows and Red Sky

February 17, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dilapidated Building 417 under garish green light and reddish sky, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California.

I think this photograph probably includes some of the most bizarre lighting that I’ve encountered at Mare Island when doing night photography there. The majority of the light comes from the right, from artificial light that has been roughly color corrected to appear relatively white, at least by comparison to some of the other light colors in this image. The garish green color comes from some add artificial light behind my camera position – the same light that appears in a recently posted photograph of Building 631 with it terribly peeling wooden walls. (One odd touch – note that the shadow of the tree that appears near the center of the lower part of the building is illuminated by this light, explaining the green tree.) The green tones also appear in the stripe of paint along the upper edge of the old loading dock, in the small #417 sign at the peak of the building, and in the less-dark portions of the tree at upper right. Then the sky ends up with odd reddish-brown light reflected on the bottoms of the moving clouds, and a similar tone is found on the wall pattern of the building in the background on the left side of the frame. Finally, though it is hard to see in this small image, there is a bit of sort of grayish-purple in the window frame at the right border of the frame.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: mare, island, naval, ship, yard, historic, vallejo, california, usa, nocturnes, night, photography, structures, red, green, garish, artificial, light, sidewalk, street, lines, cement, wall, loading, dock, corrugated, building, 417, angles, architecture, windows, door, wall, tree, urban, north america, roof, sign, stock, minsy

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

Building 631, Mare Island

February 16, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 6 Comments

Building 631, with badly peeling paint and illuminated by garish artificial lighting, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California.

For some reason I often find myself down around the old power plant and in the alley next to Building 631 near the end of my nighttime shoots at Mare Island. The railroad tracks curve through this alley – though they aren’t particularly visible in this photograph – and the bizarre and garish light and grossly peeling paint on this wall seem different from many of the other subjects around here.

One of the fun things about this sort of night photography is that “white balance” is more or less impossible! This scene includes light sources ranging from some kind of bizarre blue-green lighting that I can’t identify (fluorescent?) to sodium vapor to tungsten to sky lit by the glow from Vallejo, across the bay from the island. When it comes to the right color balance… pick one! Or several! Or make one up! In the end, no matter what you choose it won’t really “look like” what you saw in the dead of night – but for me that isn’t really the object. Long-exposure night photography lets us reveal things that we cannot see with our own eyes and present them in ways that are imaginative and different from our usual reality.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: mare, island, naval, ship, yard, historic, vallejo, california, usa, nocturnes, night, photography, structures, building, 631, peeling, paint, wall, door, light, lamp, garish, artificial, window, road, track, sky, plants, old, abandoned, industrial, north america, conduit, boarded up, downspout, no parking, wire, perspective, convergence, stock

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.