Tag Archives: photography

Photographs: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Shipyard Hoist

November 10, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Night photograph of an industrial hoist at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard

Night photograph from the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard are something of a long-standing photographic theme for me. Over a decade ago I first went there to try out night photography at an event sponsored by The Nocturnes, and I was immediately hooked on the place and on night photography. Since that time I have returned to Mare Island several times every year, each time discovering something new to see and photograph.

This time I joined other photographers as part of a Nocturnes Alumni event that is part historical investigation, part social, and (a big) part night photography. On this evening I began by searching out some non-iconic subjects (some of which I’ll share later) in odd, out-of-the-way corners of the place. Eventually, though, I walked back toward the familiar central area near the huge dry docks, where I found that one of these huge ship yard hoists had been moved out of its typical position at the water’s edge behind security fences. This meant that I could photograph from right underneath it, shooting almost straight up, and positioning myself so that it would be illuminated by ship yard lighting.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Man In White Pants

November 4, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A man walks into the sun on a San Francisco sidewalk

After more than a month filled with colorful photographs of autumn foliage in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, I’m going to cleanse my palate a bit… with a black and white street photograph. I know it seems odd and even inexplicable to some that someone who photographs the natural world and likes to spend time there would also be attracted to photographing the constructed world of urban streets — but I do. In some ways I think of this other universe as more of an extension of the same way of seeing that attracts me to natural landscapes. These are simply urban landscapes and they are populated by people rather than animals. The same light falls on the city and on the mountains. In addition, photographing street tunes up my visual sense, forcing me to quickly see and respond to compositions, light, and subjects.

On a couple of occasions this past summer I joined a small group of like-minded photographers to wander around parts of San Francisco making photographs at night. We generally assembled in the late afternoon, photographed first in the daylight late in the day, grabbed a bite to eat, and then headed back out into the evening to photograph street scenes under ambient and artificial light. Here I headed up a street into the late afternoon light, focusing initially on the backlit subjects and the lengthening shadows, and then this fellow walked into the scene.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Home Away From Home

October 25, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

My camp for a week in the Yosemite backcountry, September 2015

For the past few years I have escaped to the mountains (or desert, in one case) each fall or late summer for uninterrupted photography. Perhaps a half-dozen years ago I was fortunate enough to be able to join up with the five photographers whose work appears in the book “First Light: Five Photographers Explore Yosemite’s Wilderness.” The first year I more or less ran into the group (Charles Cramer, Scot Miller, Mike Osborne, Keith Walklet, Karl Kroeber) — they were on a pack-train supported weeklong-plus trip, and had backpacked in to the same area where I ran into them briefly. The next year I “crashed” their lengthy back-country trip for a few days; the following year I was still a backpacker (they used pack animals) but I joined them for the better part of a week. Since that time I’ve joined all or part of the group for a week or more each fall. (I’m grateful to all of them for welcoming me to join them.)

This year a smaller group of us spent a bit more than a week camped at a single Yosemite backcountry location. For someone with years of backpacking experience, typically moving from place to place each day, staying in one spot for so long has been a revelation. At first I wondered how in the world there will be enough to keep me busy for a week or more. Then half way through the trip I typically realize that I have just enough time to photograph the things I decide are important to work on, only to discover on the final day or two that I could probably actually use another half week or more! The photograph shows my backcountry home for a week this past September, at the end of a granite slab that extended almost all the way to the lake that was our home base.

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

New Louie’s Inc, Evening

October 18, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening scene as markets close in San Francisco

This photograph comes from another evening spent doing street photography in the late afternoon and on into the night in downtown San Francisco. The plan was to meet up with a small group of like-minded photographers who like urban subjects and the magic of the city at night. The other arrived before I did, and we finally caught up with one another on a street in a non-tourist area of the Chinatown district of San Francisco.

This street has fascinated me for a long time. Most often I’ve passed through in the morning, when produce trucks line the streets, and the sidewalks are crowded with people doing their shopping. At those times I often feel like a bit of an outsider, interjecting myself into a community that is not my own, but I’m attracted to many things about it and I return frequently. On this evening visit the neighborhood had a very different feeling. There were far fewer people out and about, and the shops that are so busy in the morning were now closing down one by one. Tables of merchandise were cleared and put away, sidewalks swept, shutters rolled down, and one by one the shops closed. Now, without the crowd of people, a different visual quality appeared, with the primary elements being the colors of the shops, signs and awnings, and the shapes of and relationships among the scattered tables, bins, and shelves.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: photography

Shipyard Hoist

Man In White Pants

Home Away From Home

New Louie’s Inc, Evening

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