Tag Archives: authorized

Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Simplicity

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Simplicity - A small appliance store front window with many colorful signs, San Jose, California.
A small appliance store front window with many colorful signs, San Jose, California.

Simplicity. San Jose, California. December 28, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A small appliance store front window with many colorful signs, San Jose, California.

This is another in the “walked out my front door and made photographs” series, being a store front that is within a half mile or so of my home. I’m a bit of a fan of photographing the fronts of these small businesses that appear to be anything but chain operations. Each one is its own unique universe and, I assume, reflects the owner’s personality in many ways including the cumulative effect of focusing on one small area of the world for many decades. I often wonder what it must be like to live in a world of vacuum cleaners for more than five decades – and I don’t mean to imply anything by that question beyond a serious interest in how our primary interests end up influencing how we experience and see the world.

The visual quality of these places also interests me. I can initially simply be overwhelmed by the details that must have accumulated over time – the many brightly colored signs, a few things hung on walls, displays of specialized equipment and materials with brand names I barely recognize. Yet there is a very carefully created order in all of this. It is fun – for me at least! – to spend some time looking at these scenes and starting to pick out the small details that I might not initially notice. (Of course, that is easier with a big print than it is with this little jpg!)

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

Metal Walled Building With Door, Tree and Lawn, Night

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Metal Walled Building With Door, Tree and Lawn, Night
Metal Walled Building With Door, Tree and Lawn, Night

Metal Walled Building With Door, Tree and Lawn, Night. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, California. February 26, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Night photograph of a metal walled building with a door, sidewalk, lawn, and tree – Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.

This is a bit of a different sort of night photograph compared to the others I have posted in this recent series. (Most of those were shot at some distance from my subjects – generally old, historic buildings – and in very saturated and colorful light.) Near the end of my evening shoot at Mare Island in late February I was walking back from a dark and lonely corner of the place when I passed a more modern facility, an out-patient clinic of some sort. This facility is something of a stark contrast to the surrounding area. The building is relatively new and the walls are not the usual brick and/or corrugated metal, but instead are a more modern-looking sort of metal paneling. There is landscaping, including small patches of lawn and small trees. And the light is completely different. Elsewhere in the darker areas of Mare Island the lighting tends toward yellow, coming from sodium vapor lamps, though it also includes green and occasionally other hues. But here the light is fairly neutral and actually looks almost white. I wasn’t quite sure what to do! :-)

But then it seemed to me that it might be interesting to see what I could do with this modern (though not flawless) structure and its surrounding landscaping. Here a small door, partly blocked by some sort of signs, leads into a very small section of a building and is lit a bit mysteriously from above. Sidewalks lead away from the door and a small, forlorn patch of lawn sits near the corner of the building, with a single leafless tree supported by stakes. When I saw this spot and when I look at the photograph now I get this feeling that there should be some story behind all of this… but I have no idea what it might be.

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

Bunker Entry Door, Mare Island

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Bunker Entry Door, Mare Island
Bunker Entry Door, Mare Island

Bunker Entry Door, Mare Island. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. May 30, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Entry door to old bunkers at Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.

I was surprised to find this bunker door open. Typically this area of old cement bunkers at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard seems to be sealed up tightly – in fact, most of the doors (or what I presume to be doors) have been covered with metal plates. Although this images has the look of soft daylight, perhaps that of an overcast day, the effect is the result of shooting during very late twilight when there was a combination of diffused light from the sky and some artificial light spilling into the scene from nearby.

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.

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Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM at 73mm
ISO 200, f/16, 30 seconds

keywords: mare, island, naval, ship, yard, vallejo, california, usa, north america, historic, night, photography, minsy, bunker, door, concrete, cement, entrance, sign, main, entry, point, authorized, personnel, only, frame, paint, worn, weathered, dilapidated, historic, structure, military, urban, industrial, stock, black and white, monochrome