Tag Archives: early

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, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: People, Photographs: Photographers

Photographer, Fog

February 20, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Photographer Michael Frye at work in early morning tule fog, San Joaquin Valley

A small group of us met up on this mid-February morning to photograph migratory birds, winter fog, and the San Joaquin Valley landscape. We came from different directions, beginning our travels well before dawn so that we could meet here before sunrise. We met shortly after 6:00, exchanged greetings in the pre-dawn dark, and then got ready to shoot. I lagged behind a bit while getting gear ready, and our friends Michael and Claudia started off down the gravel road before Patty and I did. Very soon were ready to follow, and in moments we found their car parked near a grassy area.

The fog was dense but also very shallow – nearly ideal for photography since it blanketed everything in a mysterious layer but still allowed the colors of the developing dawn sky to penetrate right down to ground level and make the fog layer glow with luminous color. Michael must have seen this coming, and he was already across a grassy area and at the edge of a pond when I arrived, and he was barely visible through the fog. My first thought was to “work” this solitary tree as my primary subject as the light came up, but first I thought I’d grab a photograph of him silhouetted against the foggy landscape. I made this photograph and then walked to the edge of the pond and made my own series of photographs of the tree, the water, and the foggy atmosphere as the light passed through a range of colors that the eventually revealed higher clouds lit by the dawn sunlight.

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

Erosion Patterns

January 27, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Deeply furrowed erosion patterns in early morning light, Death Valley National Park

I spent some time photographing Death Valley National Park in mid-December, during a very cold time of the year. It is not unusual for the place to be surprisingly cold in the middle of winter, but this was a period of exceptional cold and it got down to 25 degrees in the Valley and much colder in some of the places I visited in the surrounding desert mountains. I had arrived the evening before I made this photograph, and a sequence of events on the drive it suggest an inauspicious beginning to this visit. I usually come in through Ridgecrest and then up through Trona. I usually drive almost straight through to Ridgecrest and then take a long, late lunch break there – getting my last espresso until I come back out of the park, filling up the gas tank, and so forth. I killed pretty close to an hour taking care of these odds and ends, and then started out of town toward Trona.

Less than a mile up the road I ran into a flashing warning sign announcing that this entrance to the park was closed! This necessitated a bit of backtracking and then travel north up US 395 to then head east toward the park on highway 190. I had originally planned to arrive by mid-afternoon, set up camp, and then photograph in the evening… but by the time I finished all of this driving it was dark when I arrived and I simply pulled into the campground and slept in my car. Early the next morning, feeling just a bit disconnected, I drove over towards 20 Mule Team Canyon where I knew I should be able to find some nice morning light. In fact I did, and I soon found this beautiful miniature landscape of nearly parallel gullies in a hillside along the canyon. As the first light hit the edges off the ridges between the gullies I found a composition that mostly filled the frame with them. I finished shooting here and moved on. At my next location, I finally must have engaged my brain, and I checked the camera to find that it had been left on ISO 3200 from my previous work photographing musicians backstage at a concert in natural light. Groan! So this photograph is one that I managed to salvage from that little escapade… and I’m grateful for the relatively good performance of modern cameras… even when the operator is not paying attention!

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Snow, Hope Valley

November 19, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early autumn snow flurries in Hope Valley

On this early October drive across the Sierra, eventually heading for the town of Bishop, we crossed Carson Pass from west to east. The object of the drive was to photograph fall subjects on the east side of the range, but there was nothing to keep us from starting early – and we began searching out colorful autumn aspens and other subjects even before reaching the pass. Light snow started west of the pass, and when we stopped at the turn-out at the pass a decent amount of snow was falling, the wind was blowing, and it definitely felt like winter. Back in the car we started down the east side of the pass.

The snow continued as we took a short detour on a gravel side-road, then returned to the main highway to head east on highway 88 through Hope Valley. I first visited Hope Valley many years ago when I had just begun cross-country skiing, and today I often pass through on my aspen-hunting trips. The aspens were turning colors on this day, and if you look very closely you can see a very large grove of them in the distance through the snow. We briefly stopped at the turn-off to Luther Pass, where I made this photograph looking back up the creek that flows through the valley. Snow was falling and there was a thin layer of snow sticking to everything. As if to prove that photographers aren’t the only people nuts enough to stand around in the cold wind and snow, there was actually a fisherman along the creek just out of the frame to the right!

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: early

Building 237, Early Evening

Photographer, Fog

Erosion Patterns

Autumn Snow, Hope Valley

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