Tag Archives: photo

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

Brick and Concrete Buildings, Mare Island

February 21, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Night photography of brick and concrete buildings under artificial lighting with star trails at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California.

The Mare Island night photography well has still not quite run dry – so here is one more from my February 6 shoot there with The Nocturnes. I spent a fair amount of time poking around the spaces near this brilliantly lit concrete building and the darker brick building beyond, photographing the two buildings from various angles and directions. The contrast between the artificially lit plain concrete walls of the foreground building and the darker and more textured brick walls of the further building was striking, and I’ve been intrigued for some time by the reflections and glow of the windows up high on the roof. This exposure was long enough that the high clouds moved and created the linear blurred shapes you see in the sky, interspersed with subtle but numerous star trails.

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.

keywords: mare, island, naval, ship, yard, historic, vallejo, california, usa, nocturnes, night, photography, structures, minsy, concrete, brick, building, wall, window, light, reflection, shadow, fence, roof, sky, cloud, star, trail, yellow, vent, architecture, asphalt, puddle, industrial, stock, north america

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Winter Ferns and Log

February 20, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Dormant winter ferns against a decaying log, Yosemite Valley, California.

The story behind finding this little bit of landscape is perhaps best not fully told – but I’ll share little background. I had driven west along Northside Drive in Yosemite Valley in the morning looking for bits of interesting light that can crop up even in the middle of the day during winter in that deep canyon. I had just made some photographs of the Cathedral Rocks area and decided it was time to move on. As I wandered back to the car I decided to, uh, “take a short walk into the woods” on the other side of the road. While there I noticed that some interesting dry ferns were peeking up from under the melting snow, so I decide to look around a bit more in this rather nondescript bit of forest. I finally found one little cluster of ferns that were arranged against the backdrop of an old decaying log and decided to make a few photographs of it before heading back to the car and moving on.

I like several things about this photograph, but among them is the fact that it isn’t an obvious “Yosemite photo” at all. In fact, you could find a similar sort of subject in any number of places if you just look carefully enough – which in Yosemite often means looking away from those iconic and quite obvious subjects from time to time.

(And, yes, it was intentional that I posted this photographic “homage” on February 20, the birthday of Ansel Adams. :-)

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.

keywords: yosemite, national, park, valley, california, usa, north america, nature, winter, fern, plant, foliage, leaf, branch, log, wood, decay, texture, black and white, monochrome, forest, stock, curve, pattern

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: San Francisco

Ocean Beach, Winter Surf

February 19, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Black and white photograph of winter surf along Ocean Beach, San Francisco, California.

On a day like this one it was hard to resist shooting from an obvious spot like this – right by the Cliff House, looking south along the incoming winter surf at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach. With the strong backlight coming through the ocean spray and overcast and fog, the light was very diffused, and it made it possible to shoot directly into the otherwise impossibly bright direct reflections of the sun on the surf. A lot of what is in this photograph is subtle, and you might miss it in this small on-screen image – but look for the very faint outline of the distant hills of the San Francisco Peninsula and the subtle differences in tonality in the cloudy sky.

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.

keywords: san francisco, california, usa, sutro, baths, cliff, ocean, sea, coast, shore, pacific, surf, travel, scenic, beach, waves, foam, seascape, landscape, people, beach, sand, mountain, hill, great, highway, sky, clouds, mist, spray, haze, silhouette, atmosphere, recession, winter, season, stock, black and white

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

Nimitz Avenue, Tower and Buildings

February 18, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Tower, buildings, and power plant smokestack along Nimitz Avenue, Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California.

One more, and perhaps the last, in the current series of Mare Island night photographs made with The Nocturnes during the first weekend of February. This scene is one that is well-known to Mare Island night photographers – a row of industrial buildings in the “historic core” of the old shipbuilding facility where huge overhead steel structures run between the machine shops and the old docks. In this photograph I decided to more or less shoot through the base of one of these giant towers. The scene is illuminated by bright and colorful artificial light and the photograph required an exposure of about a minute and a half. (I cheated and shot the 5D2 at ISO 200.) Though they may be hard to see in the small jpg, some star trails are visible in the sky near the smokestack of the old power plant.

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.

keywords: mare, island, naval, ship, yard, historic, vallejo, california, usa, nocturnes, night, photography, structures, nimitz, avenue, street, railroad, track, puddle, water, reflection, tower, steel, yellow, ladder, industrial, rust, core, brick, wall, window, door, roof, asphalt, north america, sky, star, trails, cyclone, fence, smokestack, power, plant, stock

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