Tag Archives: structures

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

Building 631, Mare Island

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Building 631, Mare Island
Building 631, Mare Island

Building 631, Mare Island. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. February 6, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Building 631, with badly peeling paint and illuminated by garish artificial lighting, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California.

For some reason I often find myself down around the old power plant and in the alley next to Building 631 near the end of my nighttime shoots at Mare Island. The railroad tracks curve through this alley – though they aren’t particularly visible in this photograph – and the bizarre and garish light and grossly peeling paint on this wall seem different from many of the other subjects around here.

One of the fun things about this sort of night photography is that “white balance” is more or less impossible! This scene includes light sources ranging from some kind of bizarre blue-green lighting that I can’t identify (fluorescent?) to sodium vapor to tungsten to sky lit by the glow from Vallejo, across the bay from the island. When it comes to the right color balance… pick one! Or several! Or make one up! In the end, no matter what you choose it won’t really “look like” what you saw in the dead of night – but for me that isn’t really the object. Long-exposure night photography lets us reveal things that we cannot see with our own eyes and present them in ways that are imaginative and different from our usual reality.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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keywords: mare, island, naval, ship, yard, historic, vallejo, california, usa, nocturnes, night, photography, structures, building, 631, peeling, paint, wall, door, light, lamp, garish, artificial, window, road, track, sky, plants, old, abandoned, industrial, north america, conduit, boarded up, downspout, no parking, wire, perspective, convergence, stock

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

Museum Building, Reflection – Eighth and Nimitz

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Museum Building, Reflection - Eighth and Nimitz
Museum Building, Reflection - Eighth and Nimitz

Museum Building, Reflection – Eighth and Nimitz. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. February 6, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Night photography at Mare Island Naval Ship Yard – The museum building reflected in rainwater pools with shipbuilding equipment beyond.

One more in the series of night photographs made with The Nocturnes at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard near Vallejo, California during the first weekend of February. I made several photographs from this general location that feature the brick side wall of the museum building with the other ship yard structures in the background and the puddles from recent rain in the foreground.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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keywords: mare, island, naval, ship, yard, historic, vallejo, california, usa, nocturnes, night, photography, structures, eighth, nimitz, avenue, street, museum, core, brick, window, reflection, stop, sing, wall, roof, sidewalk, street, railroad, rain, water, pool, puddle, industrial, scaffold, equipment, sky, nocturnal, nocturnes, clouds, stock

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Wall, Stairway, and Late Afternoon Shadows

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Wall, Stairway, and Late Afternoon Shadows
Wall, Stairway, and Late Afternoon Shadows

Wall, Stairway, and Late Afternoon Shadows. San Jose, California. December 24, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Late afternoon shadows cast by a stairway cross a beige stucco and wooden wall.

This is another in the wandering about with only a 50mm prime series shot on Christmas eve afternoon. I have photographed this wall and stairway before, but here the strong diagonal lines of the shadows from the stairs cut across the horizontals and verticals in the image and almost seem disorienting to me. I swore that the lines in the photo were tilted until I checked them against an on-screen grid – and they still look out of kilter to me even though I know they are not.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email

keywords: urban, street, structures, stairs, stairway, conduit, wiring, pale, beige, brown, steps, wood, stucco, panel, shadow, diagonal, lines, light, late, afternoon, gas, meter, pole, barricade, sidewalk, cement, parking, lot, asphalt, leaves, litter, trash, garbage, vertical, horizontal, pipe, stock

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

Nimitz Avenue at Night

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Nimitz Avenue at Night

Nimitz Avenue at Night. Mare Island Naval Shipyard, California. March 7, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Night photograph of buildings and shipyard structures along Nimitz Avenue near the waterfront at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California.

This is perhaps one of the “classic” Mare Island Naval Shipyard scenes, where the giant shipyard scaffolding crosses Nimitz Avenue from the shipyard buildings to the shoreline facilities, varieties of artificial light lend a warm glow to the view up the street, and faint star trails appear above in the dark sky.

I think that this is a good scene for first-time Mare Island night photographers to work with. It presents a lot of interesting challenges, but they can all be handled with some thought and care. You need to get the sky right – not too light and you want at least some star trails. I could have done a longer exposure since a bit more than three minutes left me with short star trails, though they weren’t my main subject. The dynamic range is absolutely huge, especially if you don’t take care to obstruct direct line of sight to some of the lights up the street. I had to look around quite a bit to find one small spot where the composition worked and the buildings and towers are positioned to block them. If you don’t block them you either completely blow out those highlights or else you must shorten the exposure to the point that the foreground roadway ends up almost completely black. The lighting also has to be just right on the structures at the top of the frame. On this night we were perhaps 3 or 4 days short of the full moon so a combination of moonlight and artificial light illuminated the structure. (A full moon might have been a bit better.) Then you need the right focal length to get the right parts of the scene into the frame. Here I used a 35mm prime on a full-frame DSLR and cropped the result a bit to eliminate some distractions along the right edge.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: mare island, naval, shipyard, minsy, night, photography, nocturnes, vallejo, california, usa, building, road, tracks, rail, train, shipyard, structures, minsy, brick, street, sky, star trails, smoke, stack, smokestack, truss, nocturnes, window, light, stock