Tag Archives: island

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

Alley, Night

March 21, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

I photographed both familiar and new subjects at the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard again this past week. During the evening I gradually worked my way across the core of the place,eventually heading south from where I began. I had photographed the other side of the building on the right, which contained a large open interior space with many windows. When I came around the other side of the building I was surprised by the complex pattern of light between the two receding buildings. I had photographed here in the past when the building to the right was abandoned, and this alley had been a very dark place.

On this evening those of us who have photographed at Mare Island for a long time — some for several decades — lamented some of the changes that are coming to the place. It lay almost dormant for years, but now many of the old buildings are being refitted for modern users. On one hand this changes the lonely and forlorn character of the island. On the other hand, it means that once the buildings are rehabilitated they will likely stand for a long time. But right now construction is going on everywhere, some interesting places now are off-limits, and fences have been erected around the construction work. That posed a problem for this photograph. In the past I could walk right up this alley, but now a portable cyclone fence cuts off access. I solved the problem by extending my tripod as high as it would go — well above my head! — and photographing over the top of the fence.

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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Ship Yard Buildings, Crane

March 19, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

I recently had a chance to return to this ship yard facility near Vallejo, California to work on night photography. This is the place where I first tried that genre approximately fifteen years ago. It was more or less on a whim — I read that someone was inviting photographers to come up to Mare Island, in conjunction with the annual Flyway Festival, and find out about night photography. I knew almost nothing about it, but decided to give it a try. Since that time I’ve been hooked. I’ve returned to photograph here often during the intervening decade and a half, and my night photography expanded from that beginning to incorporate other subjects and places. (Recently I have focused on night street photography done with small handheld cameras.)

This photograph is an example of several things that intrigue me about photographing at night. Scenes that might seem mundane in daylight are transformed at night. Not only do many distractions simply disappear, but the light itself, especially in areas with varied artificial illumination, transforms these subjects. In many places LED lights have replaced the wild mix of tungsten, fluorescent, sodium vapor, and other sources today — an unfortunate development in the visual sense, as LED light is more or less like daylight. But in places like this one, the colors of the light become intense. Here the intense green of a large work light predominates. Another appeal of night photography is that it lets me make photographs of things that my eyes cannot see. In the ambient lighting I could only barely see the details of this scene. But with a long exposure there is enough light to reveal hidden features, a pure example of “seeing what the camera sees.”

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Island With Trees, Thinning Fog

February 2, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sunlight begins to illuminate a small wetland island as San Joaquin Valley tule fog thins

We all know that (apparently false) story about the number of words that Inuit people have for the myriad types of snow. I suspect that it would be possible to have a similarly diverse vocabulary of descriptions for fog, dependent upon its thickness, temperature, quality and color of light, tendency to move, effect on sound, time of day, season, persistence, and much more. Photographing in California is something of a laboratory in the nature of fog, in that we have so many types. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area I am very familiar with the type of fog created by the marine influence — often cold and gray and damp, and frequently a feature of the late-spring and summer months. Photographing Central Valley birds (and driving across the great valley while traveling to and from the Sierra Nevada) has given me ample opportunities to know the tule fog, mostly a winter phenomenon caused by cool and damp conditions over land.

On winter days when I photograph in the valley I experience transitions though many different types of fog and fog-light. I often start before dawn, when the fog and darkness can close the world down to what I can (barely) see in my headlights, or by the glow of commercial signs and streetlights as I pass through towns. Before sunrise the fog can glow in colors ranging from sky blue to the gaudy reds, oranges, yellows, and purples of first light on clouds above the fog. Eventually that color dissipates and the fog can simply become gray. Then, as it things (often from the top down), and light begins to filter down to the ground level, the colors of grasses and trees and water being to appear faintly.

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Mono Lake Shoreline, Evening

October 10, 2017 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

The last light on hills beyond the Mono Lake shoreline

I’ve long been fascinated by the view across this section of the Mono Lake shoreline. It contains a lot of things that I consider essential to the Mono Lake experience — tufa “towers” (though these are more like islands), the shallow shoreline with its curving edges, the larger islands and buttes, the distant mountains in the east, the immense open sky, and the textured and reflecting surface of the water.

In a way, this photograph was sort of (but not exactly!) the result of “killing time” between photographing two other subjects. I had been at a nearby area with colorful aspen trees, and had finished up there — the light was gone sooner than expected when high clouds moved in. At that point I knew that the full moon was going to rise close to sunset, so I decided to find a location along the Mono Lake shoreline to photograph it. I arrived there too early — better than too late! — and had some time to photograph other things as I waited for the moon. I went ahead and set up tripod and camera with some urgency as I noticed to last sunlight on some of those distant hills.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: island

Alley, Night

Ship Yard Buildings, Crane

Island With Trees, Thinning Fog

Mono Lake Shoreline, Evening

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