Tag Archives: monochrome

Pier at China Camp

June 1, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The old fishing pier at China Camp, California

This is another photograph from my first visit to the China Camp site along the northern San Francisco Bay, a place I had thought about visiting and photographing for several years. It was a Chinese immigrant settlement in the 1800s and apparently there was a thriving shrimp harvesting operation there. Today it is essentially ghost town, though one that has been stabilized and fixed up and which incorporates some “interpretive” facilities. I ended up there in conjunction with a “long-exposure photo walk” weekend that photographed a number of Bay Area locations over the course of three days. Though I did not participate in the entire event, I did join up with them on one morning to photograph dawn at the Golden Gate and then to travel up to China Camp.

This pier was the subject of several of my photographs on this day. It is an interesting and compelling subject in a bunch of ways. Its historical context of course makes it interesting, but there are several interesting visual aspects to it, too, and the overall feelings are of quiet and space and perhaps a bit of desolation. The pier itself is unlike most that I’ve seen. Power poles with utility lines run along its length. Ladders descend to the waterline for entry into small boats. Birds sit on top of high points along the pier. The water in the China Camp lagoon is almost completely still, and there is a great expanse of open water beyond with only low hills on the far horizon. (This quality reminded me just a bit of some views of Mono Lake.) For this photograph I used a 9-stop neutral density filter so that I could extend the exposure to last many seconds, further smoothing the surface of the water. I made about a half-dozen exposures, trying to get on in which the darned birds would hold relatively still for 5-10 seconds… and they finally cooperated on the last shot.

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: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Dogwood Flowers, Rain

May 31, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Late spring rain on dogwood flowers, Portland, Oregon

We made a brief visit to Portland, Oregon over the Memorial Day holiday, and – surprise! – it rained! This was actually a welcome development for those of us who live in parched California, where we are in the second year of drought conditions. We spent most of our Portland time in the downtown area, predominantly between the main downtown and the Pearl district – where there are lots of interesting things to see, good food to eat… and, of course, Powell’s books. On the final morning we ventured out a bit further to an area of north Portland where we visited the beautiful St. Johns Bridge over the Willamette River. We wandered down below the span and its gothic-looking support towers, where we found lots of vegetation including some very lush dogwood blooms.

There is also a bit of a technical story behind this photograph. I usually shoot with a full frame Canon system, using a variety of lenses and mostly working from the tripod. But that is a lot of gear to carry on a trip like this one that was not primarily about photography. (Though, to some extent, virtually all of my travels are at least partially about photography!) So I left behind the full-on system and instead carried my Fujifilm X-E1 Digital Camera, along with the Fujifilm 35mm f/1.4 XF R Lens and the Fujifilm XF 14mm f/2.8 R Ultra Wide-Angle Lens. The camera is a mirrorless “rangefinder style” body that brings to mind the classic rangefinder film cameras. This makes for a very small and light package – and this photograph was made handheld using the 35mm prime. While my main goals with this camera are more likely to involve street or travel photography, I’m quite pleased with how it performed in this nature shot.

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

Building 106, Night

May 26, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

It has been a while since I have posted new night photography, much less work from this location. I’ve photograph this area extensively over a period of years, often working with my friends from The Nocturnes, the San Francisco Bay Area night photography group. In fact, I was there with them once again on this mid-March night.

Atypically, some of us had begun the evening’s work by shooting in the daylight! Shortly before sunset someone came up with the novel idea, among night photographers anyway, of going out before it became dark to photograph in the golden hour light. So, I started early and gradually worked my way back to the familiar central core of old ship yard buildings. Some years ago when I first visited I was entranced by the most obvious subjects, mostly very large and impressive industrial structures. I still find them impressive and continue to photograph them, but as I returned many more times I began to push out the boundaries of what I know of the place. Eventually I looked for less obvious subjects, sometimes small and out-of-the-way things I had first overlooked, and I began to move beyond the familiar core area to look a bit more far afield. While the location in this photograph isn’t that far from where I started shooting, it is a bit less visited and it was probably the first time that I had explored this particular spot. I was first attracted by some nearby tall structures that look like they might be some sort of hoppers or collection equipment. Then I continued walking and turned up this side alley where nearby artificial lights illuminated the terribly weathered metal walls of old factory buildings, rising from the small one at right, past the taller building just beyond, and culminating that the much taller building near the upper portion of the frame, with its large pipe that must have carried smoke or gas away from its room.

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.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Calero Oaks, Fog

April 27, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

This is an older photograph that I sort of “rediscovered” while going through older files recently. It was due for a bit of additional work, reformatting to fit my current preferred 4:3 print ratio, and the updated web border and text that you see in the online versions of my photographs. (And, to answer the question that comes up from time to time, my fine art prints do not include the text found in the online photographs!)

Although I no longer visit there quite as often, this area became a favorite location of mine a few years ago, especially during the winter months when morning fog frequently burns off and reveals the newly-green winter landscape of the California grassland and oak forests. The photograph was made on one of these very mornings, as I had hiked the familiar trail along the top of this ridge, to find myself on the border between fog in the valleys and clearing on the ridge, with the edge of the fog drifting through these trees and the sun backlighting this misty atmosphere.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: monochrome

Pier at China Camp

Dogwood Flowers, Rain

Building 106, Night

Calero Oaks, Fog

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