Tag Archives: light

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: People, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Woman Walking, Red Awnings

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Woman Walking, Red Awnings
Woman Walking, Red Awnings

Woman Walking, Red Awnings. San Francisco, California. March 6, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A woman walks past red shop awnings and downtown building wall along a San Francisco Street.

This shot was made on a very shaded side street not too far from Union Square in San Francisco. The blurred figure is intentional – part of a series I’m working on – since this handheld shot was made at a slow shutter speed of 1/20 second using a 50mm lens on a full frame body. Part of the idea was to place the walker (or allow her to place herself!) in an interesting location relative to all of the other objects spread horizontally across the wide frame: the display windows with the red overhands, the green trash can, the tall black lamppost, and the two manhole covers in the street. The games for me on this type of image include finding the basic composition and then finding and timing the shot of the right passer-by.

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
ISO 200, f/8, 1/20 second

keywords: street, urban, san francisco, california, usa, north america, travel, woman, walking, sidewalk, street, manhole, cover, light, pole, garbage, trash, waste, can, concrete, wall, pattern, red, awning, store, shop, window, person, downtown, road, geometry, pattern, stride, stock

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: People, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Woman Walking Past Wall

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Woman Walking Past Wall
Woman Walking Past Wall

Woman Walking Past Wall. San Francisco, California. March 6, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Woman with coffee cup walks past a wall and behind a fire hydrant and tree, San Francisco, California.

While waiting for a table at a restaurant on a Saturday morning in San Francisco, I grabbed a few photographs of this interesting (to me, anyway!) juxtaposition of yellow wall, tree trunk, fire hydrant, and passing pedestrian from across the street. I first just thought that the light on the plain yellow/tan wall and the white window frames was interesting, and then I thought about how tree trunk and the cluster of leaves framed the central window. As I thought about this and started shooting the woman walked through the frame and, I think, added some balance to the elements in the scene.

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 85mm f/1.8
ISO 100, f/8, 1/250 second

keywords: street, urban, woman, walk, sidewalk, texture, wall, window, white, frame, yellow, tan, trim, blinds, angle, oblique, tree, leaves, trunk, branch, fire, hydrant, curb, shadow, light, morning, san francisco, california, usa, north america, stock, cell, phone, talk

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

Brick Building, Ferry Street

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Brick Building, Ferry Street
Brick Building, Ferry Street

Brick Building, Ferry Street. Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California. February 27, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The corner of a brick building at the intersection of Ferry and Nimitz Streets catches glow from nearby outdoor lights – Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California.

This is another photograph from my late-February night photography shoot a the historic Mare Island Naval Shipyard with The Nocturnes. The panoramic format image shows the corner of one of the brick buildings along Nimitz Avenue near the waterfront at Ferry Street. I’m almost always a sucker for old brick buildings, especially when photographed at night, but a few other things in this scene caught my attention. The right side of the building fronts that “main” roadway of Nimitz Avenue and is more brightly lit by street lights and security lights, while the left side is more in shadow and here is lit mostly by the light of the full moon. I was also intrigued by the contrast between the angular vertical and horizontal forms of the brick wall and the odd curving shape of the cable snaking up the side of the building in the center of the frame. I also noticed the glowing windows along the dark side of the building – the interior walls are picking up light coming in through the windows facing Nimitz Avenue. I also like the tiny bit of contrasting green color in the “Ferry St” sign.

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
ISO 200, f/11, 291 seconds

keywords: night, photography, nocturnes, brick, wall, building, structure, architecture, ferry, nimitz, street, avenue, mare, island, naval, shipyard, minsy, vallejo, california, usa, north america, wire, pipe, window, pane, glass, artificial, light, historic, sign, conduit, screen, shadow, perspective, corner, interior, light, cable, stock, panorama, panocturnist

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

Moonlit Stairway, Wall, and Window

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Moonlit Stairway, Wall, and Window
“Moonlit Stairway, Wall, and Window” — Night photography of a moonlit stairway, wall, and window at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California.

Compared to most of my night photography, especially the work from Mare Island, I think this photograph has more of a noir quality. I made it in extremely dark conditions at the bottom of a dark stairway next to a dark building in a dark corner of the historic Mare Island Naval Shipyard using only moonlight. Oh, did I mention that it was very dark? :-)

Making this a bit more of a technical challenge, in order to get the composition I had in mind (more or less, since it was impossible to really see the scene fully) I needed to shoot from a position very close to the bottom of the stairway and close to the window at lower right. Since I didn’t want to lose sharpness on the far section of the wall that is lit by moonlight I had to use a small aperture of f/16. But in order to maintain image quality I didn’t want to raise the ISO too far. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place! So the exposure ended up being very close to eleven minutes long, and even this was barely long enough. (And, using the camera’s long-exposure noise reduction, this meant waiting around for well over 20 minutes to expose the shot and then do the follow-up dark frame exposure. For obvious reasons, I only made one exposure of this subject!)

This was a challenging photograph to print! It really needs to go all the way to black in portions of the lower left, but I need to retain at least a small amount of near-black detail – and it takes a bit of work to get the right color/detail in the shadow at the upper right.

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

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