Tag Archives: blue

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

Building 237, Early Evening

April 26, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early evening light on the face of Building 237, Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California

This is one of the rarest of photographs from me—a daytime photo from Mare Island! Although I have photographed here for quite a few years, virtually all of my photographs from this location have been made at night, when the industrial environment of the place is transferred by darkness and artificial light into something mysterious.

By day, many of the subjects that I find so interesting and even colorful at night are often quite bland and boring. Building 237 is the subject of one of my favorite photographs from Mare Island, “Yellow Buildings, Shadows, Moving Clouds.” In that photograph, these buildings glow with an intensely yellow light from nearby artificial lightning, and the motion of clouds during the long exposure creates an aura in the dark sky above them. But during the daytime, the color of the buildings is a somewhat faded and drab sort of yellow-tan shade, and this is even more washed out in typical daytime light. On this visit, largely because the sun sets later by the clock during daylight savings time, we found ourselves ready to photograph well before it was dare, so I decided to go out and look for golden hour light as the day ended. Here that light subtly colors the front face of building 237, whose color contrasts with the cold, blue tones of the next-door building that is already in full shadow.

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: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Wetland Fog, Dawn

April 1, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

First dawn light glows faintly through winter fog above a San Joaquin Valley wetland marsh

This was definitely shot during the morning blue hour, the pre-dawn light was here tinged with pink color from first sunlight striking high clouds far above the ground-hugging layer of thick fog. This is another photograph from my favorite Central Valley haunt, where I often go to photograph birds during the cool months of late-fall through very early spring.

The fog was thick but not deep, and as we drove to this area we were able to look up through it and see the predawn sky even though the murk was thick enough at ground level to force us to drive very slowly. Arriving at our destination, it was foggy and still, but as the first light of morning began to arrive, the pink color of high clouds illuminated the fog and created a glow of a somewhat unusual color. I had a few minutes along the edge of a pond to photograph in this fleeting light. The first photographs, like this one, were a combination of blue and faint pink/purple. A moment later the pink became even more intense, and then as the light increased the color faded and the fog became more transparent, allowing a view upwards through it to those higher clouds.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Snow Geese and Sky

March 30, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Six snow geese against blue sky and thin clouds

When out photographing winter birds in the Central Valley of California there are so many things to photograph and so many ways to photograph them. It might be perfectly blue-sky clear, it might be foggy, or there could be the precursor or remnant clouds of a Pacific weather front. There might be agricultural subjects nearby—cattle, barns and other structures, fields. Or I could end up in a town, with its farmland character. And there are always the birds—close up photographs of individuals, groups clustering together, huge flocks. They might be in trees, on the water, flying, feeding in fields.

While it is perhaps not the sort of shot that I most like, I can’t help myself from photographing groups of birds that fly over. I’m not sure if it the continuing desire to get the perfect arrangement of birds in motion, the technical challenge of making a photograph of such rapidly moving targets, or some primal hunting instinct… but I do know that when I’m not photographing something else compelling, I’ll fire off a lot of photographs of birds in flight. And we had plenty of them on this mid-February day, when the birds seemed both more willing to let us be close and more likely to take flight. This group separated from a much larger flock that was wheeling overhead and passed almost above me before turning west into the sun.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Rocks, Sand, Wood

February 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Colorful detritus of rocks, sand, and wood along the desert floor of Death Valley National Park

Death Valley National Park is landscape on the gigantic scale and a landscape of extremes. Elevations range from below sea level to over 11,000′ At the right time of year you can stand in 90 degree or hotter temperatures in the lowest place and look up to see snow on the highest peaks. It is well-known that the heat and aridity are extreme. The scale of the place is stupendous. When I first traveled in the park it reminded me, perhaps in a surprising way, of monumental landscapes that I had seen in The Yukon and Alaska, where the land seems to go on farther than one can see. Because there is so little vegetation, the geology of this desert landscape is laid bare, and rugged strata are easy to see.

But there are also surprises right underfoot. At the right time during the right years (and this photo was not made at such a time) small plants and wildflowers emerge and insects and other small critters can be seen. Some of these intimate landscape scenes seem more mundane, but they also tell stories worth hearing. This small patch of earth is at the base of some small, eroded hills along the east side of Death Valley where I have stopped from time to time. It is not an obviously special place – there is no parking lot or sign. The first time I went there to photograph in the evening I looked down and noticed the dense collection of multi-colored rocks, dead plants, and sand, and now when I go back there I seem to always end up looking for the same thing. The curving bit of dried wood was once a plant eking to a life at the edge of the main valley. These rocks are likely evidence of the surprising role that water plays in the formation of this landscape, having been washed down from those various strata and formation high in the Amargosa Range, leaving traces of blue, pink, purple, tan, and green minerals. And below and mixed in with all of this is the omnipresent sand, deposited and moved to and fro by Valley winds.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: blue

Building 237, Early Evening

Wetland Fog, Dawn

Snow Geese and Sky

Rocks, Sand, Wood

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