Tag Archives: usa

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

From the High Peaks

March 19, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Central California spring terrain viewed from the High Peaks Trail at Pinnacles National Park

When I was a lot younger I used to visit what was then Pinnacles National Monument, a quiet little park well south of the San Francisco Bay Area, known for its remarkable rock formations, for being too hot to visit in the summer, for spectacular spring wildflowers, and as a place for rock climbers. For various reasons the place had sort of slipped out of my consciousness, and I had not been back there in the past thirty years or so. A few years ago I began to think that I should return and begin to photograph the place, especially now that it has been promoted to national park status, and it was this month that I finally returned for the first time.

Many things were largely as I remember them, though there have been changes – to the park and to my recall! I arrived at the west side trailhead (where there was a campground when I last visited — but no more) and decided to begin the renewal of my relationship with the park by doing the High Peaks Trail. The photograph was made near the high point of this trail. The hike begins with a 1500 climb from the parking area to a high ridge, followed by a traverse through ridge top terrain of giant towers and sheer drop-offs. I chose to take the “steep and exposed” route, and was surprised that I had forgotten just how steep and exposed it really is. There were some spots where getting past while carrying my large and heavy camera pack was a bit tricky!

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

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Fall Color, River Canyon

March 18, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cottonwood trees and other fall color along the bottom of a river canyon, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

I made this photograph a few years back on a beautiful autumn day when a small group of friends walked down a river canyon, exploring and photographing the river, the vegetation, and the rocky walls. Direct sunlight does not reach the bottom of these canyons most of the time, especially during the times of the year when the sun’s path is lower in the sky and the daylight hours are shorter. Instead, the light strikes the upper walls, bouncing back and forth, diffusing and picking up the color of rocks and fall leaves as it makes its way downwards. If you look, you can see it in this photograph — in the glow on the canyon wall, the saturated colors of the leaves, and the light making its way into shadows.

Such canyons are wonderful places to go if you want to be cut off from the rest of the world. The landscape above the canyons is often relatively bare, perhaps dry and flat with occasional junipers. But none of that flat land world is visible once you are down in the canyon, where cottonwoods and brush spring up along the creek and every bend promises something new an interesting.

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

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

Abandoned Loading Dock

March 17, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Railroad tracks and a weather protection structure above an old loading dock, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard

This is another very still and quiet image from my recent evening photographing the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard. Image walking alone in the darkness among these old (mostly) abandoned ship yard buildings: shops, warehouses, towers. Occasionally a lone car drives past, momentarily raising my level of alertness. It is mostly silent except for a sound of distant traffic across the water in Vallejo. The air is typically cold and damp, and on this night a bit of a breeze blows. The photographs are visual images, but they also evoke, for me, a whole series of associations, memories, and sensations associated with the place the experience of making the photographs.

There is always a question of just how to treat luminosity and color with these nighttime subjects. The fact of the matter is that many of these scenes are barely visible to the human eye, and details are shrouded in darkness. In this low light color is mostly desaturated, only becoming visible afterwards in the photograph. And much of the color is not the true color of the objects, but rather is the color of the light that illuminates them — and it can range from yellow to reddish, but white or even blue-green. The concept of accurate rendering becomes moot, since an “accurate” photograph (if “accurate” means “what it looked like”) would be almost colorless and nearly pitch black. Instead I take this as an opportunity to capture “what the camera sees” and use that as the raw material for what must be an interpretation of the captured light — almost inevitably brighter and more colorful than the original, but still trying to evoke that mysterious and quiet nocturnal quality.

Photographs: Night, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Support Columns, Purple and Green Wall

March 16, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Night photograph of dilapidated building in green and purple, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.

In contrast to the huge and somewhat garishly lit iconic towers and cranes of Mare Island, there are innumerable little quiet and hidden subjects to photograph. I think that most of us start with the obvious subjects and eventually, after shooting them many times, begin to look for these other possibilities. I photographed this in very low light, complicated by a bit of wind, and I could barely see the subject as I worked. (In order to focus I had to shine a small light on the edge of part of the structure.)

The colors were almost a bit of a surprise. At Mare Island there (or, in too many cases used to be, now that the lighting has been “modernized”) a wild variation in lighting types. There is often the moonlight. A glow comes across the water from Vallejo. Sodium vapor lamps can produce a sort of sickly yellow color. Tungsten light is warm colored, and fluorescent light can be very strange. As a consequence, the colors of this nighttime world are more about the colors of the lighting than the colors of the subjects themselves. The side of this building, which is probably quite drab in daylight, picked up subtle green and purple tones under the artificial light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: usa

From the High Peaks

Fall Color, River Canyon

Abandoned Loading Dock

Support Columns, Purple and Green Wall

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