Tag Archives: lamp

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

Painted Brick Walls

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Painted Brick Walls
Painted Brick Walls

Painted Brick Walls. San Francisco, California. March 6, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Green and pink painted brick walls in San Francisco, California.

Several things catch my eye about this little scene: the contrast between the sharply defined monochromatic green bricks on the left and the wildly pink and badly painted bricks on the right, the old light fixture with its small shadow, the almost completely black line in the middle of the image where the two buildings don’t quite meet, the sliver of blue sky near the top of this shadowed area, and the very stark and harsh light.

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 50mm f/1.4 USM
ISO 200, f/11, 1/400 second

keywords: san francisco, california, usa, north america, travel, urban, downtown, city, street, brick, wall, pattern, structure, architecture, light, lamp, pink, green paint, geometric, shadow, tenderloin, stock

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

Building 631, Mare Island

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Building 631, Mare Island
Building 631, Mare Island

Building 631, Mare Island. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. February 6, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Building 631, with badly peeling paint and illuminated by garish artificial lighting, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California.

For some reason I often find myself down around the old power plant and in the alley next to Building 631 near the end of my nighttime shoots at Mare Island. The railroad tracks curve through this alley – though they aren’t particularly visible in this photograph – and the bizarre and garish light and grossly peeling paint on this wall seem different from many of the other subjects around here.

One of the fun things about this sort of night photography is that “white balance” is more or less impossible! This scene includes light sources ranging from some kind of bizarre blue-green lighting that I can’t identify (fluorescent?) to sodium vapor to tungsten to sky lit by the glow from Vallejo, across the bay from the island. When it comes to the right color balance… pick one! Or several! Or make one up! In the end, no matter what you choose it won’t really “look like” what you saw in the dead of night – but for me that isn’t really the object. Long-exposure night photography lets us reveal things that we cannot see with our own eyes and present them in ways that are imaginative and different from our usual reality.

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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keywords: mare, island, naval, ship, yard, historic, vallejo, california, usa, nocturnes, night, photography, structures, building, 631, peeling, paint, wall, door, light, lamp, garish, artificial, window, road, track, sky, plants, old, abandoned, industrial, north america, conduit, boarded up, downspout, no parking, wire, perspective, convergence, stock

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Building 101, Corner View

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Building 101, Corner View

Building 101, Corner View. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. August 30, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The corner of building 101 under artificial light and with fog overhead – Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California.

Like I said, I guess I’m not finished with this series yet.

This is the same Building 101 that I photographed from several different perspectives late in the evening of my August 30 visit to the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard in Vallejo, California to do night photography with some other Flickr folks. The other photographs of Building 101 are straight on and explore various portions of the front of the building. For this one I shot straight at the corner of the building instead, for several reasons. For one, I wanted to include the different types of light striking the two visible sides of the building. Almost all of the light is artificial aside from a bit of moonlight, but the light striking the right side comes from a very close and bright – and very yellow! – sodium vapor light. It was all I could do to handle the saturated yellows on this wall. The front of the building is lit by lights that are a bit weaker, though they only appear less garish by comparison to the almost hallucinatory yellow light on the right side. Above this are some interesting converging angles of roof and walls and overhead the fog glows in the artificial light from sources below.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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keywords: mare, island, naval, ship, yard, minsy, vallejo, california, night, nocturnal, photography, historic, building, structure, 101, yellow, artificial, light, bright, window, door, roof, pipe, wire, metal, texture, rust, peeling, dilapidated, old, worn, out, shadow, reflection, grafitti, paint, urban, industrial, lamp, fog, overcast, sky, glow, stock

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

Facade, Building 101

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Facade, Building 101

Facade, Building 101. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. August 30, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The front wall of building 101 at the historic Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California – photographed at night under variety artificial ambient artificial lighting.

Yes, another Mare Island photo… and another photography of Building 101! In this photograph I simply wanted to capture the garish lighting and the wild weathered and dilapidated detail of the front of this building: angular shadows, peeling paint on window frames, obscured and graffiti-scarred glass, the texture of the corrugated metal walls, and the odd bits of intruding fence and stacked barricades.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Web: G Dan Mitchell Photography
Twitter: http://twitter.com/gdanmitchell
Friendfeed: http://friendfeed.com/gdanmitchell
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keywords: night, nocturnal, photography, artificial, sodium, vapor, tungsten, illumination, light, lamp, shadow, wall, front, facade, building, 101, architecture, historic, window, door, conduit, grafitti, fence, metal, corrugated, yellow, brown, dilapidated, run, down, frame, mare, island, naval, ship, yard, california, usa, structure, urban, industrial, decay, stock, minsy