Tag Archives: wall

Photographs: Night, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Yellow Wall, Warning Signs

November 16, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Night photograph of yellow building wall, doorway, windows, and warning signs, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard

This will be the first of a series of night photographs, made on a recent visit to the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard in Vallejo, California. I have been photographing at night here for more than a decade now. As I return I continue to find new things to photograph as the lighting is always different and the buildings themselves change. For example, on this visit I found that a dry dock area that has recently been used to dismantle old ships is lit in such a way as to light familiar buildings in new ways, and that some ship yard equipment that used to be behind security fences was now more accessible.

The architecture of this old building is found all over Mare Island and in other military and similar locations all over the country. (At a recent exhibit in San Francisco many viewers of one of my Mare Island photographs were almost certain that the photograph was from Hunters Point — and I can see why, as the same sort of architecture is found there.) Many buildings near this one appear to have been damaged in a north bay earthquake that happened not too long ago — a chunk of the building’s roof is damaged, some of the hanging conduit may have come down in the quake, and a corner of the next door brick building is gone.

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

Photographs: Photographers, Photographs: Urban/Street

Photographer Doug Kaye

November 7, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Photographer Doug Kaye prowling a San Francisco alley in late afternoon light

Back in early September I joined up with a group of fellow photographers to explore areas of downtown San Francisco in late afternoon light, followed by dinner, and then a return to the streets to photograph at night. Among the group was photographer Doug Kaye, here seen walking into the light along a narrow San Francisco street, a street lined with a bit of Dr. Seuss architecture with wildly dissonant angles from shadows, fire escape leaders, perspective convergence, and a crazily tilting lamp-post.

Later on this evening we headed back out after dark to photograph areas between roughly upper Chinatown and the Union Square vicinity. Night street photography is rapidly becoming a bit of a passion. Last year on a trip to Manhattan I realized that my little mirrorless camera performs well enough at high ISOs that I can effectively do handheld photography in the urban night environment — and this was a revelation!

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: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

The Crossing

October 17, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two men wait on the sidewalk for the traffic light to change, San Francisco

Taking a brief break from the stream of photographs of eastern Sierra Nevada fall colors — I think I need to rest my eyes! — I’m next sharing a couple more San Francisco street photography images from early September of this year, when I joined a group of fellow photographers to wander about in some downtown areas. We started in the late afternoon, with the plan of shooting in the sunset and twilight and then continuing right on into the night. This photograph comes from a later hour, shortly before I wrapped up for the evening.

We eventually ended up in San Francisco’s Chinatown district. This is, of course, a popular tourist area during the daytime, but it has a different character in the evening as the shops close up. From here we wandered down to the Union Square area, where there are almost always crowds of shoppers, tourists, and people passing through. At about this point it was time for me to head back to where I started, so I left the group and started back toward my car, stopping occasionally to make a few more photographs. In a way, this photograph is a bit of a lie and a contrivance — though all photographs are such to some extent. Here, in a rather busy area, I spotted the two men along at a corner and by choosing my composition careful (and quickly, this being street photography!) I managed to exclude the rest of the bustling scene and place them against a sort of amorphous form of the back ground building and in front of the geometry of the cross walk.

Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Wall and Shadow

September 13, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The shadow of a passing person on a bright yellow wall, San Francisco

I had been walking along a busy San Francisco street as I traveled from the Caltrain Station up toward Market Street, photographing people and structures and construction zones. Right near Moscone Center I took a detour up a stairway leading towards the “Zeum” and the area around it.

It was still early morning and the low angle light struck a very brightly painted yellow wall where a staircase led to the upper level. I was working on ways to photograph this color (trickier than it seems!) and the angles of the stairway and the shadows when a person fortuitously walked across behind me and added her shadow to the scene.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: wall

Yellow Wall, Warning Signs

Photographer Doug Kaye

The Crossing

Wall and Shadow

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