Tag Archives: corrugated

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

Loading Dock Doors, Townsend Street

July 17, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early morning light on the wall of an industrial building with black loading dock doors along Townsend Street, San Francisco.

This photograph was made very near to where I made another I posted recently, one of a pair of freeway overpasses near the San Francisco Caltrain station. After making that photo, I headed back on Townsend toward the station and as I walked along a row of industrial buildings these loading dock doors and the bright light from the morning sun caught my attention. So, in a suitable old-school approach, I pulled out the camera with the 50mm prime and found a way to frame the scene.

If you are into this sort of thing, you might relate to a few small details in the scene that I like. One is the faint shadow of the two overhead electric lines that cuts a diagonal from upper right to lower left, which also happens to be along the same dimension over which the sunlit diminishes. Aside from the predominant shades of tan on the wall and shades of gray elsewhere, there are a couple of bits of yellow-orange on the curb and the sign near the far right.

If you can read the signs – hard to do at this small size – you will understand that it would be a very bad idea to park here. :-)

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.

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

Yellow Buildings, Fence, and Night Sky

April 26, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Night photograph of abandoned industrial buildings from the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.

The building on the left is sometimes known as the “UFO Building” – not because of anything that might be stored inside, but because of a shadow in the shape of a “flying saucer” that forms on one of its walls. I thought it was the only one until I took this photo in which you might spot another saucer-shaped shadow on the wall of the building at the right.

This scene is not a particularly unusual one at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, a place that is full of old industrial buildings left over from the long ship-building history on this island. Many of the old buildings are now in a state of somewhat arrested development, but they certainly show the signs of age and lack of care – lots of boarded up buildings, peeling paint, warnings about hazards of various kinds, and so forth.

Most of the light in this photograph comes from a bank of strong security lights on the exterior of a more modern nearby building, and the yellow color is a result of the type of lighting that is used. There is also a bit of full moon light in the shadows and on the bit of cloud at the upper right, and this also explains the lighter coloration of the sky. When making night photographs in a place like this, I feel comfortable about not really trying to “capture” an objective reality of the place. To be blunt, that is pretty much impossible. First of all, it is actually so dark in many of these places that it takes a while for your eyes to get used to it. Secondly, there are so many varied light sources with so many different colorations that it is essentially impossible to “color correct” the scene – though I’m not even quite certain what it would mean to do that in a scene that we really can’t “see” with our own eyes.

The idea in my night photography is not often to capture the scene as it “is,” but instead to reflect the way “the camera sees,” a way of seeing that is quite different from our native modes of seeing. Things that occur over long periods of time (exposures measured in minutes) appear in a single frame, sometimes objects lose their definition as shadows move and wind blows, stars create streaks in the sky and passing clouds blur, and the colors are far from “natural.”

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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

Industrial Building, Stop Sign, Night

March 5, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Night photograph of an old industrial building and a stop sign beneath sky with star trails, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.

This old building at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard appears to be some sort of warehouse and loading dock, judging by the raised flat area attached to the front of the building and the large doors. I made the photograph from the middle of a large empty parking lot, and in addition to the horizontal form of the yellow corrugated metal building, I wanted to include the green glow through the windows at the far left and the red stop sign. The sky has a bit of a warm glow that is coming from the urban areas of the East Bay – Mare Island is on the fringe of this area.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | 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

Yellow Buildings, Shadows, Moving Clouds

March 3, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

This seems to be the week for photographs involving a combination of preparation and serendipity. I made an unsuccessful attempt to photograph these buildings a year or so ago. I managed to get spooked and learn a little lesson in the process. Most of the time night photography is a quiet, peaceful, and slow experience. There are often very few other people around, and in the darkness you can be entirely alone. Much of the work is done slowly – wandering around looking for compositions in the near darkness first, and then waiting for long exposures to complete. On that first attempt with this subject I had set up in an abandoned parking lot next to these buildings and was standing quietly by my tripod when I heard the sound of a fast-moving car. A sixth sense told me to pay attention… and in seconds a car came speeding around the corner of a nearby building and into the parking lot! I don’t think I’ve ever grabbed my gear and run so fast! (The resulting photo is sort of funny and captures my panicked escape after perhaps 2/3 of the exposure had completed – the image of the buildings is there, but superimposed on it is a wild pattern of light formed as I spun around, carrying the camera without even taking time to close the shutter.)

Since then I wanted to try photographing these buildings again. Late in the evening of this recent shoot I noticed translucent clouds passing overhead. When such clouds are lit from below and have a chance to moving during long exposures they form interesting patterns. I quickly headed toward that same notorious parking lot… and this time found a safer spot on a raised sidewalk, which also gave me a better angle on the buildings. The clouds were moving away and to the right, so I had to work quickly to get set up and start exposures. The first one (not shown here) was a slightly wider shot. Then I thought about the zig-zagging angles and shapes of the buildings roof lines and corners and noticed that the same shapes were mirrored in the shadow cast by a nearby building. With this in mind I decided to try a tighter crop on the buildings, and I ended up with this photograph.

(Edited and updated in January 2025)

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