Tag Archives: shadow

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Windows, Ramp, and Asphalt

June 20, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The side of a metal building with windows reflecting an asphalt parking area with painted lines, Seattle, Washington.

This is the third in the short series of urban geometry photographs from my early May visit to Seattle, on which I had an hour (only an hour!) to photograph in the Fremont District with a group on a Seattle Photo Walk. After starting in “downtown” Fremont, meeting up at the Lenin statue, wandering over beneath the Aurora Bridge, and walking back along the waterfront, I climbed the stairs to another bridge that took me back toward my starting point.

This bridge turned out to be an interesting subject and vantage point. I made a few photographs of the bridge itself, mostly focusing on details, but for the most part those did not end up being images that I’ll share. However, once I got up on the bridge and started to walk across it, the vantage point it provide across the tops of buildings and down into areas below was interesting. The subject of this photograph is probably some of the most banal looking office space around, especially since I narrowed the composition down to simply showing a wall, some windows, a bit of concrete, the shadow of the bridge on which I was standing, and a painted out section of an asphalt parking area. It is what it is, and you get to figure out what that might be! :-)

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

Industry Noir

June 6, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A night scene in an artificially-lit industrial area of the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.

Given some of the other iconic and impressive things that may be photographed at the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, this is sort of a normal looking scene. However, as one who has photographed there quite a bit at night, somehow it seems to capture – for me, anyway – something about the way the place feels. Wandering about among very old, very abandoned, and very dilapidated old structures in the quiet of the night, sometimes things can feel just a bit strange, and a glow from inside a window on the second story of a building or the reflection of a soft interior light can sort of make you wonder just a bit.

To be honest, I’m rarely scared or nervous when shooting there. For the most part the experience is a very quiet, slow, and contemplative one. But I recall one night that was a bit different. I had arrived early – before the sun set – and had met up with a group of fellow night photographers. They had some plans to shoot in a particular area, but I really wanted to shoot something else at first. So I told them to go ahead and start and that I would find them a bit later after shooting my first subject. Finishing with that work a half hour or so later I headed off in the direction they had gone, stopping to make more photographs along the way. But I never saw them again. I continued shooting along, wandering along deserted old streets and up alleys behind abandoned buildings. Finally at one point I suddenly became aware of being very alone in a very dark place and, for the first and only time at MINSY, I became nervous – and quickly packed up, returned to my car, and left. This photograph reminds me of that just a bit…

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

Man Crossing Bridge

May 31, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A man crossing a bridge in the China Basin area of San Francisco, California.

Two bridges crossing the inlet that passes AT&T Park (including “McCovey Cove”) are visible in this photograph. I’m not enough of a historian to have really researched these bridges, though I think that both are or were draw bridges and that at least the far one dates to the early twentieth-century. They are interesting anachronisms in areas that are now quite different from when the bridges were built – much of the surrounding area is not filled with new office and apartment/condominium buildings (one of which is barely seen along the waterfront at the far left) and often crowded with people attending San Francisco Giants games.

As I often do when photographing certain subjects, I began here by trying to create a composition that just included the structure of the bridge, especially with the pattern of the metal grate the forms the roadway here. Then I noticed that a pedestrian was approaching, so I thought I’d see if he might end up in interesting places within the composition. My original idea was to make the exposure before he reached the spot where his is located in this frame, but at the exact right moment a car crossed the bridge in front of him!

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street, Photographs: Wildlife

Room in Abandoned Building, The Embarcadero

May 15, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The interior of an abandoned waterfront building on the Embarcadero, San Francisco.

This interior is a room in a building located on one of the piers along the Embarcadero on San Francisco’s waterfront. This one is located not far from the South Beach Harbor. It seems to be one of those old structures that was recently adapted for use by companies that had the “look” of being part of the tech boom in the city – perhaps design firms or similar. I have walked past it many times, occasionally photographing the exterior windows and other features, but otherwise not noticing it all that much.

On my last walk past this spot things had changed, to say the least. There were signs along entrances that declared that the pier had been closed, ostensibly for safety reasons, and that no trespassing was allowed. No one seemed to be inside the building, and most of the businesses appeared to have left or been abandoned. Though one set of windows I could see stacks of boxes labelled with intended mail recipients, but that mail wasn’t going anywhere! Near the north end of the building I could see into this sun-filled room, with its tall windows facing the bay and the morning sun. Almost everything was removed from the building, giving it almost the same abandoned feeling that I often experience when shooting at Mare Island. I managed to push my camera up against a window, block reflections from the street behind me with my hand, and make a few perhaps final photographs of this space.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: shadow

Windows, Ramp, and Asphalt

Industry Noir

Man Crossing Bridge

Room in Abandoned Building, The Embarcadero

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