Tag Archives: pilings

Pier 57, Crane Barge

Pier 57, Crane Barge
A crane barge docked next to Pier 57, Manhattan.

Pier 57, Crane Barge. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

A crane barge docked next to Pier 57, Manhattan.

Manhattan’s Hudson River waterfront fascinates me. It is a busy place with lots of vehicle traffic, but many facilities along the shore have been and are being transformed. Old piers fall into ruin, others are converted to new purposes. New structures extend the city over the water. I made this photograph at one of those new places, the “Little Island.” It seems to grow organically from the water, and it houses a busy little park with enough elevation to provide good views of the surroundings.

This photograph looks up the shoreline to Pier 57, a renovated structure that is now a commercial space and which includes its own park. The relationship between the building’s green paint and the red-orange color of the crane caught my attention, as did the colorful reflection in the water just beyond the old pilings.


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” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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San Pablo Bay

San Pablo Bay
Old pilings in tidal flats along the edge of San Pablo Bay.

San Pablo Bay. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Old pilings in tidal flats along the edge of San Pablo Bay.

This photograph comes from a wonderful visit to a spot along the shoreline of San Pablo Bay, which is essentially a lobe of San Francisco Bay. While the entire Bay Area, especially those areas that are right along the water, is typically a busy urban area, there are still locations where you can almost completely escape that vibe. This is one of those spots, at a park that walls off almost entirely any signs of urban or modern industrial development, and where the long views obscure those things in the distance.

In this particular location the edges of the bay are more or less tidal flats, and the water along the immediate shoreline tends to be very shallow, often emerging at low tide. The old pilings are a remnant of an earlier time when there was a settlement here and when it was the site of an active shrimp harvesting industry. On this morning, it was mostly a very quiet and still place.


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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Pier, China Camp

Pier, China Camp
An old pier at the historic China Camp State Park, San Pablo Bay.

Pier, China Camp. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

DeAn old pier at the historic China Camp State Park, San Pablo Bay.scription

China Camp, along the shores of the San Pablo Bay lobe of San Francisco Bay has a remarkable history, one that I was unaware of until perhaps a decade ago despite living the Bay Area almost my entire life. The name recognizes that the location was a settlement of Chinese immigrants in the 1880s, and there was a substantial village here that developed a shrimp fishing industry. Although that began to fall apart early in the 20th Century, the last resident was still there late in the 1900s before the area became a park, saving it from industrial or suburban development.

Today it is a remarkably quiet place in the midst of a very busy Bay Area. Buildings and other elements of the earlier village still exist and have been restored, and it is interesting to ponder the lives of the people who lived there. This photograph features an old pier that extends out into the bay from the area of the remaining buildings.


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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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An Old Pier, Night

An Old Pier, Night
Night photograph of the pilings of an old pier reflected in still water.

An Old Pier, Night. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Night photograph of the pilings of an old pier reflected in still water.

Photographed a few years ago at night in very dim lighting, these old pilings under a ship yard pier were reflected in the smooth water, made even smoother by the effects of a long exposure. You can tell that this structure has been here for some time.

The location is at an old ship yard in the San Francisco Bay, a place where naval ships were built and maintained for may decades — actually, since way back in the 1800s. The place was decommissioned in the 1990s and its character has changed since that time, though you can still find some remarkable historical structures if you poke around and get to know the place a bit.


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” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | FacebookEmail

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.


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