Tag Archives: waterfront

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco

San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge, Morning

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San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge, Morning
San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge, Morning

San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge, Morning. San Francisco, California. January 6, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

San Francisco skyline and Golden Gate Bridge at dawn as a winter storm passes

I have previously photographed this alignment of San Francisco icons so I know more or less the precise spot to set up in – a slice of landscape about 10 feet wide and perhaps 40 feet long. It has been a few years since I’ve stopped to photograph there, but the opportunity came up on this morning. I had driven up to San Francisco and across the Golden Gate Bridge to meet up with a large group of photographers who were on a so-called “photo walk” devoted to long exposure photography. I had no idea it would be as popular as it turned out to be! Although I arrived at the base of the road to this location well before sun rise, as I ascended I encountered several successive parking areas that were already full… before dawn… on a cold winter day… during a storm!

So I headed on up the road toward the summit, but found that access gates were closed before the top. I parked and thought a bit about what I might shoot, then grabbed my gear and started walking on up the hill. Before long I stopped at this spot – where other photographers were already set up – and set up in “my spot” that aligns the bridge tower with the building and made a few exposures. It was still quite dark – just before dawn and with thick clouds above the city – but this ended up working to my advantage. Photographing this bridge at night is very tricky because the towers are lit rather brightly and the orange color is very “hot” when photographed, making for some truly complicated exposure decisions. However, with just a bit of diffused pre-dawn light filtering in and the lights in the city not yet extinguished, it became possible to get a nice exposure on the bridge and reveal some of the details of the downtown buildings.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Two Bridges and Fog, San Francisco Bay

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Two Bridges and Fog, San Francisco Bay - Morning fog floats above the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, the Bay Bridge, and Yerba Buena Island.
Morning fog floats above the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, the Bay Bridge, and Yerba Buena Island.

Two Bridges and Fog, San Francisco Bay. San Francisco, California. July 14, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning fog floats above the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, the Bay Bridge, and Yerba Buena Island.

This is certainly not a unique viewpoint for photographing the Golden Gate (and the bridge named after it) and the rest of San Francisco Bay… but I keep returning anyway. While the principal physical elements of the scene – Marin headlands, bridge, the City, bridges, Yerba Buena Island, the East Bay – the conditions of light and atmosphere change constantly. The variations in the fog alone could be the subject of a book, I’m sure! It can come from the west (summer) or the east (winter), it can be high or low (or both at once!), thin or thick, opaque or luminous, static or moving quickly, illuminated by sun or by artificial light at night, and more.

On this morning it was a combination of several of those. There was a sort of thin fog/haze at the lower levels, but the thicker fog was quite high, above the bridge towers and even a bit above my position in the Marin headlands. The fog was beginning to break up, starting to the east and gradually moving westward toward the coast, and when I made this photograph large beams of diffused light were coming through the fog deck and lighting areas around the San Francisco waterfront and even on the bay waters. Lining up the elements of the photograph wasn’t terribly hard once I found the composition I liked, but then I waited for boats for move into or out of the frame (see a large freighter passing between towers of the distant Bay Bridge) and for the light to appear in (as close to) the right places (as one can hope for).

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Man Crossing Bridge

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

Man Crossing Bridge. San Francisco, California. April 20, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

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!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Room in Abandoned Building, The Embarcadero

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Room in Abandoned Building, The Embarcadero - The interior of an abandoned waterfront building on the Embarcadero, San Francisco.
The interior of an abandoned waterfront building on the Embarcadero, San Francisco.

Room in Abandoned Building, The Embarcadero. San Francisco, California. April 20, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

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 is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.