Tag Archives: shadow

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

Stairs and Green Windows, Night

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Stairs and Green Windows, Night
Stairs and Green Windows, Night

Stairs and Green Windows, Night. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. April 5, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An industrial building with green windows and a shadow-casting staircase, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard

The lighting is part of what has made photography there so interesting. It includes a wild range of sources—sodium vapor, mercury, fluorescent, tungsten, moonlight, and more—and sometimes turns otherwise bland structures into brilliantly colorful subjects. More recently there have been changes to the area lighting on the island. Now the older, colorful lighting is gradually being replaced with sun-white LED lights!) While I have to agree with the goal of increased energy efficiency, many of us mourn the loss of those old, colorful light sources. The LEDs can produce light that looks almost like daylight in some situations!

The first thing that brought me to the general area of this photograph was a pool of bright light in front of it that I saw coming from a very bright light across the roadway. As I approached I saw the interesting old external staircase, a subject that I often find interesting at Mare Island, and the complex pattern of shadows cast by the lights. I’m also a fan of the many large banks of windows in the buildings on the island. I’ve always assumed that the construction must have included so much glass so as to provide better interior light for these very large shop buildings. These windows are somewhat opaque, perhaps at least partially from age, and the lighter objects inside are only seen faintly through the glass.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Seven Sandhill Cranes

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Seven Sandhill Cranes
Seven Sandhill Cranes

Seven Sandhill Cranes. San Joaquin Valley, California. February 14, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Seven sandhill cranes in shallow water, San Joaquin Valley

This was an interesting and varied day out in the Central Valley wetlands, chasing birds, fog, and various landscape subjects. We started, as is pretty much the rule, before dawn. Actually, the drive to this place started way before dawn and in the darkness, so that we could arrive and be ready to photograph before the sun rose. Meeting up with friends who came with the same ideas, we began our watching and searching and photographing in pre-dawn light and thick, low fog. As the morning wore on the ground fog dissipated, leaving behind the common Central Valley haze and some thin high clouds.

We continued to “work” this area, moving from place to place looking for the best bird photography opportunities. To me, “bird photography” does not just mean birds, but also includes effects of light and atmosphere and the background landscape. You never know for sure what you’ll find out here, but on this mid-February day the birds seems, to me at least, to be surprisingly active. Sometimes you’ll mostly get action very early and very late in the day, but this time it seemed like there was almost always something going on. Large flocks of various sorts of geese would arrive and depart, often collecting in large groups on fallow fields. There was a large number of cranes, and this time they often showed up in places that were relatively accessible to us. Several times we found fairly large groups of them not far from the gravel road that we were on, sometimes in fields and, as in this photograph, standing in shallow ponds. This group was close enough that I could photograph from the vehicle, using it as a blind, and by using a long lens get close enough to focus on this group standing together and—for the moment at least—facing in the same direction.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Dunes, Evening

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Dunes, Evening
Dunes, Evening

Dunes, Evening. Death Valley National Park, California. December 11, 2013. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Receding layers of sand dunes in evening light, Death Valley National Park

After a very long day spent driving a lengthy backcountry gravel road through mountainous terrain, I headed back to my camp at Furnace Creek to take care of camp business and grab something to eat. As I usually do in Death Valley, I scheduled my day around a morning subject and an evening subject. Since the morning work had lasted so long, I was thinking of something closer for the evening and, besides, by the time I was ready to shoot it was probably too late to travel very far in the remaining light before the early sunset of this December day. So I decided to travel up the valley a bit to well-known dunes, where I can almost always find something interesting to photograph if I just go looking.

I stopped some distance from the “usual location,” loaded up some basic equipment, and wandered out into a likely looking section of the terrain that would probably not seem all that special to those seeing the area for the first time. (That’s easy to understand, when the impressive and large sand dunes tower above everything else not far from here!) But I know there is a wealth of interesting things to be found even in what appears to be the plainest of the dunes – conjunctions of light and shadow, textures of sand, tracks of small creatures, plants poking through the sand, and more. When I arrived the low sunlight was just about to leave this area, so I worked quickly, trying to take advantage of fleeting moments of shadow and light. As I came to the top of a low dune I saw this complex terrain of dunes and shadows stretching in front of me.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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.

Commentary, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Textures

Illuminated Wall Panel

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Illuminated Wall Panel
Illuminated Wall Panel

Illuminated Wall Panel. New York City. December 24, 2013. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The patterns of an illuminated and woven wall in a New York City Chinese restaurant

We had arrived in New York earlier this afternoon, taking the subway in to Manhattan from Kennedy to get to our hotel on Canal Street. The plan was to get settled there – where we would stay for the next week – and then meet up with family and friends and walk to the Chinatown district for dinner. Christmas Eve, New York City, meeting friends and family, Chinese food – what could be better?

We found the restaurant and some of our party were already there. In a city like New York I almost never go without a camera and, yes, I took one to dinner with me on this evening. Most of the photographs are of people in our group – and I won’t likely post those here. But as we sat down, across the table was a very interesting wall – wide panels of some material that looked like very thin wood were woven together and lit from behind. I thought that the pattern might make an interesting photograph, so I made a single exposure… and went back to paying attention to the party!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.