Tag Archives: rain

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

Building 45, Rain and Shadows

November 21, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Black and white night photograph of Building 45 with rain and shadows, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard

Having shot at Mare Island so many times, and having never encountered any weather challenges more daunting than a little wind or some night-time cold, I suppose I was due for some rain. And we got it on this visit. This being the annual “Nocturnes Alumni Night” event, people arrived much earlier than necessary for night photography – during the daylight hours mostly. As we met and shared photographs and then pizza, the conversation occasionally turned to the question of, “When will the weather front arrive tonight?” The most optimistic among us thought that it might not rain at all. Others thought it would hold off until after we were done shooting. Still others – including those of us with smart phones running weather radar applications – were not so sure that we would escape the weather this time, since it looked like the front would pass over us very shortly after we planned to start shooting.

The pessimists were right this time! Less than a half hour after we dispersed into the darkness to begin our work, it was already sprinkling, and within a few more minutes the front arrived and it began to rain in earnest. Along with another group of Nocturnes, I quickly moved to the shelter of one of the old mansions and hung out on the porch. The front wasn’t large, and after an hour or so the rain had diminished to the point that I could venture back out again. (To those who wonder about such things, the combination of night and rain is not conducive to being out and about making photographs.) I headed back over into the “historic core” area near the waterfront as the sprinkles continued, eventually ending up at this spot, near the end of building 45. Access wasn’t as easy as usual due to construction in the area and due to that darned rain! However, the rain created special conditions for night photography, adding a reflective gleam to all of the wet surfaces. The lighting here is from nearby street lights and security lights, and the sodium vapor lamps create a very garish yellow effect in color photographs – so I decided that I would take this one in the black and white direction. The patter on the wall at the right is a shadow from the huge gantry structure that towers above this spot.

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

Stairway, Rain

November 19, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Black and white photograph of a stairway and a portion of a front wall of Building 45 on a rainy evening at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California

I interrupt the almost-steady stream of landscape photographs from the American Southwest (of which there are many more to come) to share a photograph of night photography at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard near Vallejo, California. Depending upon where you see/read this, you may not know that I have been photographing this place at night for a half-dozen years or more, joining a large number of other night photographers who continue to be fascinated by the place. The San Francisco Bay Area group known as The Nocturnes has been instrumental in uncovering the photographic potential of this wonderful location and in ensuring its respectful treatment by photographers, and I was there with them again this week. I’m certain that many people who drive past and see “Mare Island” signs have no idea of how long this place has existed (well back into the 1800s) nor of its historic importance (the first US west coast major ship yard) or some of its “issues,” including the transition from the military to civilian uses and all of the things that this entails.

The whole area, but especially that around the “historic core,” is quite an amazing photographic resource, especially for those who have worked to “see” it at night. There are a number of obvious, impressive, and iconic features – the gantry structures, the power plant, many old buildings, dry docks, and more – yet return visits begin to reveal smaller and subtler features that you could miss on a single visit. There was one wrinkle in this week’s shoot – RAIN! When we assembled there before sunset – for photograph sharing and talk – we knew that a weather front was headed our way, but we hoped that it might hold off long enough to let us complete some shooting first. I wasn’t so sure. (The weather radar app showed a front very close to us!) As soon as it was dark enough, I quickly went to work at this building that I had seen earlier in the day when I arrived. It was already beginning to sprinkle when I got there, and soon the rain increased to the point where I had to work under an umbrella as I completed some relatively long exposures. (For real fun, try juggling camera, lenses, bags, tripod, and an umbrella… in increasing wind… and rain… while trying to attach camera to said tripod and compose and focus!) I had time to make five or six photographs at this location before I had to seek shelter along with my Nocturnes colleagues on the front porch of one of the old officers’ mansions.

Photographs: Arizona, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: The Southwest

Rain Squall, Monument Valley

November 14, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Distant mesas and towers of Monument Valley, veiled by a passing rain squall

I have a bit of a surprising confession to make. Utah is not the only state in the American Southwest that I had not previously photographed. Although I have been in the state before, I had never photographed there prior to this year, when we made a quick pass though the upper portion of the state on a drive between Moab and Zion National Park. Several things explain this. First, as I’ve written before, I’ve long been a California landscape bigot – the “local” landscapes of ocean and mountains and deserts and redwoods and more have been, and continue to be, such a focus that I’ve felt little inclination to shoot elsewhere. More recently, as I discovered Utah, I felt a bit of an obligation to avoid Arizona for certain other reasons that I won’t go into right now.

That’s right. I’ve never photographed the Grand Canyon. In fact, I haven’t even seen the Grand Canyon except from the air while flying over the state. And, no, I had not seen Monument Valley either. As we left Moab and headed south, I was excited about seeing this new landscape, but a bit concerned about the potential for photography as a storm – and not just the afternoon monsoon – was moving through. Sure enough, just about the time we got near to Monument Valley the clouds thickened, the wind blew, and it began to rain in earnest. However, I soon caught sight of the towers and mesas of this valley in the distance, familiar from so many photographs I’ve seen, and I quickly realized that the rainy conditions were actually going to provide some very special light and effects. This photograph is a case in point. It was cloudy but not raining at my camera position. Just beyond, a passing squall was dropping rain across the desert terrain and muting and blurring the features, but beyond that the sun was shining on the stupendous distant formations, and beyond them broken clouds were moving.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Wildlife

Snow Geese and Farm Buildings

March 19, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Snow geese fly low past a Skagit Valley farm, Washington.

Back in February I was fortunate to be able to spend a day photographing migratory (and other) birds in the lower Skagit Valley area in the state of Washington. For me the primary draw was the snow geese, since I had just spent several days photographing Ross’s geese in California’s Central Valley, along with the beautiful trumpeter swans that hang out in the fields in this part of Washington. I had also been alerted to the presence of bald eagles in the area.

I drove up very early in the day from the Seattle area, arriving at just about the time that would have been sunrise… if it had not been a typical gray Washington day. I passed through a small town by the highway and then headed out into this farm country, immediately spotting scattered groups of trumpeter swans, whose large white bodies stand out clearly against the intense green of the new growth in the fields. However, all of these birds were too far from the roads, so I moved on, soon passing what looked like a country produce stand in front of a fallow field that where there were some geese. I stopped – and immediately heard that striking sound of the huge flocks of geese – and got out my camera gear to see what I could do. At this point I looked around a bit more and saw flock after flock of birds high in the sky to the west and heading this direction. Very soon all of these flocks began land on this very field where I had fortuitously stopped and in minutes there were tens of thousands of geese on the ground and many more flying routes above and around the field.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: rain

Building 45, Rain and Shadows

Stairway, Rain

Snow Geese and Farm Buildings

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