Night photograph of an old industrial building and a stop sign beneath sky with star trails, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.
This old building at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard appears to be some sort of warehouse and loading dock, judging by the raised flat area attached to the front of the building and the large doors. I made the photograph from the middle of a large empty parking lot, and in addition to the horizontal form of the yellow corrugated metal building, I wanted to include the green glow through the windows at the far left and the red stop sign. The sky has a bit of a warm glow that is coming from the urban areas of the East Bay – Mare Island is on the fringe of this area.
Night photography of an old yellow building with dark windows against a backdrop of dark sky with star trails, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, California.
This is probably a fairly conventional image of Mare Island buildings in some ways and it includes the ever popular star trails! One aspect of doing night photography – especially when exposures are measured in minutes rather than seconds, much less fractions of seconds, and double-especially when you must wait for a second dark-frame exposure to complete – is that you have a lot of time to stand around and observe and think about what you see. A whole lot of time. Before I made this photograph, I had made one of a nearby wall with some interesting windows and a door and illuminated by some light that passed through some intervening stuff, producing interesting shadows. The alley where I was shooting was quite dark, necessitating fairly long exposures, so as I made that previous photograph I had perhaps 10-15 minutes of “standing around time,” during which I was able to observe my surroundings pretty closely.
Lately one subject that I’ve been experimenting with is the upper stories of buildings, shot from below and with sky beyond. Near where I was shooting and next to a nearby alley was this large (apparently) concrete building with dark windows, and its pointed prow against a backdrop of relatively dark sky. I noticed that this section of sky held more bright stars that some other areas and that if I lined things up just right I could position some to either side of the point at the corner of the building.
Night photograph of two large yellow buildings, shadows, and streaks for clouds moving across the sky above the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, California.
Night photograph of two large yellow buildings, shadows, and streaks for clouds moving across the sky above the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, California.
This seems to be the week for photographs that result from a combination of preparation and serendipity. I made an attempt to photograph these specific buildings a year or so ago. I was not successful, and I managed to get spooked and learn a little lesson in the process. Most of the time night photography at Mare Island, and at many other places, is an incredibly quiet and peaceful and slow experience. There are often very few other people about, and in the darkness you can believe that you are entirely alone. Much of the work is done very slowly – wandering around looking for compositions in the near darkness first, and then patiently (or not so patiently!) waiting for long exposures to complete, sometimes more than once. On that first try here I had set up in an abandoned parking lot next to these buildings on a very quiet evening and was standing quietly by my tripod when I heard the sound of a car moving a somewhat fast. A sixth sense told me to pay attention… and a moment later a car came speeding around the corner of a near by building and into the parking lot! I don’t think I’ve ever grabbed my gear and run so fast! (The resulting photo is sort of funny and captures my panicked escape after perhaps 2/3 of the exposure had completed – the image of the buildings is there, but superimposed on it is a wild pattern of light formed as I spun around carrying the camera without even taking time to close the shutter.)
However, since then I have wanted to try shooting these buildings again. Late in the evening of this most recent shoot I noticed that some translucent clouds were passing overhead. When such clouds are lit from below and have a chance to move during a long exposure they can form very interesting patterns. I quickly wandered over toward that same notorious parking lot… and this time found a safer spot on a raised sidewalk along the front of some buildings… which also gave me a better angle on the buildings. The clouds were moving away and to the right, so I had to work quickly to get set up and start exposures. The first one (not shown here) was a slightly wider shot. Then I thought about the zig-zagging angles and shapes of the buildings roof lines and corners and noticed that the same shapes were mirrored in the shadow cast by a nearby building. With this in mind I decided to try a tighter crop on the buildings, and I ended up with the photograph seen here.
A small shack with interior lit by red and green lights at the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, California.
At last weekend’s night photography shoot with The Nocturnes at Mare Island Naval Ship Yard I wandered a bit further afield than I have on some previous visits, eventually ending up in an area where I have only photographed once before when I unsuccessfully shot a couple of large barn-like buildings. (I think I have a shot of these buildings from this trip that I like, and I’ll post it later on.)
While spending nearly a half hour photographing a light post against the backdrop of a very dark brick building (which amounted to two photographs, given the long exposure times and the follow-up “dark frame exposures) I kept thinking I saw a faint red glow inside a small nearby building. At first I thought that one of my fellow night photographers might be doing some light painting, but the light seemed awfully dim. Eventually I noticed that it was also quite constant – and light painting virtually always involves moving the hand held light source around in order to get a smooth lighting effect. Once I finished shooting the light pole (unsuccessfully, it turns out) I decided I would go over and see what was creating this light.
The buildings appears to be a small “guard shack” or similar, a very old and very dilapidated one room structure. Inside, as best as I could tell, there is a small table, a few chairs, a digital clock of some sort with green letters, and some kind of very dim red light. Intrigued, I decided to see if I could photograph it. One technical problem was going to be the very large difference in lighting between the bright light on the clock and the extremely dim exterior, made worse by the dark color of the building. I figured that I could probably put enough extra light onto the building’s exterior using a very small key chain LED light than I happened to have with me, and that is the major source of light on the front of the building and on the yellow foreground curve – I simply walked around on both sides of the building and moved the small light over its surface.
In the end, I think this is another example of night photography as a source of a certain kind of “fantastic” lighting. The actual scene was very, very dim, and the the intensity of the colors here is almost entirely the result of the very long exposure and a bit of improvised lighting on the yellow curb behind the fence – a photograph of something that cannot be seen with our own eyes.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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