Tag Archives: towers

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Pinnacles, Searles Valley

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Pinnacles, Searles Valley
Trona Pinnacles, Searles Valley, Desert Mountains

Pinnacles, Seamless Valley. Near Trona, California. March 27, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trona Pinnacles, Searles Valley, Desert Mountains

These remarkable pinnacles stand just off to the side of a route I often use to get to Death Valley National Park, and that’s where I was reading on this day back in March. The pinnacles are just outside of their namesake town of Trona, a rather isolated and seemingly decaying old town whose main business seems to be extracting minerals from the playa holding Searles Lake. A drive through the town reveals that it is still alive, but that it is suffering the malady of so many isolated desert towns depending on extraction industries, namely an eventual decline. There are many buildings that have clearly just been abandoned.

The pinnacles are visible a few miles away from Trona, out in the valley just south of the lack. They appear as a long row of huge, tooth-like formations. I understand that they are ancient tufa formations, related to but much larger than the similar formations in some other well-known California locations. I have been contemplating photographing them for years, and from time to time I stop and drive out there. The main challenge has always been the lighting, and every time I’ve been there the light has been the stark, clear sky light of desert day, which is not always conducive to photography. This time that light was softened a bit but a few high clouds and some haze, and as we explored the pinnacles I saw this juxtaposition of near and far towers.

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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Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Lower Manhattan, Bridge Cables

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Lower Manhattan, Bridge Cables
Lower Manhattan as seen from the Brooklyn Bridge

Lower Manhattan, Bridge Cables. New York City. December 26, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Lower Manhattan as seen from the Brooklyn Bridge

In late December 2015 we spent a week in New York, staying in Brooklyn very close to the Bridge. For most of the week we mostly didn’t pay a lot of attention to this landmark, but near the end of our visit we had some time to kill one morning before meeting our sons in Manhattan, so we decided to take the famous walk out onto the bridge. It was a fairly cold morning, threatening rain, so the scene had a wintry appearance. That didn’t stop the crowds though, and we shared the bridge with lots of other walkers.

Photographing from the bridge I made a conscious decision to not make “that photograph” of the cables leading up to the towers. Instead I looked to subjects that included the cables and other elements of the bridge structure either as the primary subject or as part of the setting for other subjects. I decided to “play” a bit in post with this photograph. One way to stretch post-processing skills is to think about how to replicate effects that we see in the work of other photographers. This isn’t about imitating them — it is about trying to broaden one’s skills as a photographer. In this case, I went towards (but not all the way to) a kind of processing that I see in some currently popular urban and architectural photography… and I learned a few things by doing so.

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

Photographs: Southern California

Hollywood

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Hollywood
The Hollywood sign and antennas

Hollywood. Los Angeles, California. November 28, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The Hollywood sign and antennas

Yes. That sign. I suppose that everyone (probably) needs a photograph of the thing and, believe it or not, this is my first. There I was. There the sign was. The light was attractive. I photographed it. ;-)

During a four-day visit to Southern California we ended up making a drive up north to central Los Angeles to visit a museum, and since I had never been to the Griffith Observatory before — really! — we decided to correct that. In the late afternoon we headed to Griffith Park with, or so it seemed, about half of the population of the Los Angeles basin. We eventually caught a shuttle and soon found ourselves among the crowd at the observatory. Crowds aside, it is quite a place… and there, off to the right, was the famous sign. As something of an iconophobe, I have to admit that I did not realize that it would be visible from here!

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

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

Yellow Building, Ventilation Towers

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Yellow Building, Ventilation Towers
Night photograph of a building in yellow light and ventilation towers, Mare Island

Yellow Building, Ventilation Towers. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. November 7, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Night photograph of a building in yellow light and ventilation towers, Mare Island

This was one of the last photographs I made on a recent evening with The Nocturnes at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard. After spending the first half of the shoot exploring some little hidden areas that aren’t quite so obvious, I made my way back towards the “historic core” of the ship yard near the dry docks. This area is well-lit these days, as it is being used to dismantle ships of the “ghost fleet” that have been anchored in the delta for years.

The nature of that light is part of the subject of this photograph. The foreground building, with its classic and well-worn military base construction, stands across a street from the work area. It is brightly lit by sodium vapor lamps whose light floods this entire area, and this kind of lighting has a very warm color cast, so warm that it can give a bright yellow appearances to buildings that are very drab in daylight. Off in the distance is another set of buildings, with some kind of ventilation or cooling towers standing above them. The color of the light on that structure is a mystery — aqua, faint purple, yellow, blue-green. Most likely it is due to a combination of multiple light sources including sodium vapor, industrial LED streetlights, and more. Above all of that is the sky, though it also has a somewhat odd coloration, much warmer that the sky tones in rural areas due to the city lights reflecting on clouds.

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 | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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