Tag Archives: weathered

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

Power Plant Wall, Night

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Power Plant Wall, Night
Power Plant Wall, Night

Power Plant Wall, Night. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. April 16, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Night photograph of the exterior wall of the power plant at Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.

I have wandered past this building on many previous night photography sessions at Mare Island and have photographed quite a bit nearby, but this is the first time I have photographed it, at least from this perspective. (The iconic power plant smokestack above this building has been a subject of mine in the past.) The first thing that caught my interest about this building is that wonderful bundle of pipes that emerges near the upper left area and then heads off to who-knows-where in both directions. As I looked at the side of the building and imagined what it would look like in a long exposure under this artificial light, the rectangular shapes of the painted sections of the concrete wall seemed like they might also be interesting. And only after I made the photograph and looked at it in post did I realize that there was enough light in the scene – and perhaps inside the building – to faintly light some parts of the interior seen through the windows. The many shadows coming from different directions are produced by multiple overlapping light sources nearby.

To give you an idea of how dark it was on the scene, there was not enough light to focus. Usually I can get just enough by using the live view feature on my camera and finding an edge or a reflection somewhere that provides a line that has enough light, but not here. I finally ended up using one of the standard night photography tricks: I took a very small pocket LED light, walked over and set it against the wall, walked back to my camera to focus on this point of light, returned to the wall to retrieve the light, walked back to the camera and made my exposure.

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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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Abandoned Mining Cabin Ruins, Panamint Range

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Abandoned Mining Cabin Ruins, Panamint Range
Abandoned Mining Cabin Ruins, Panamint Range

Abandoned Mining Cabin Ruins, Panamint Range. Death Valley National Park, California. March 29, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of the ruins of an abandoned mining cabin high in the Panamint Mountain Range of Death Valley National Park.

There are a number of things that make Death Valley National Park, to the best of my knowledge, rather unique. One is the extensive history of human habitation inside the park boundaries, quite a bit of which is visible –  though some takes a bit more effort and attention to spot. The history of mining in the park is well-known, and many of the icons of the park have connections to this history. If you visit Furnace Creek, for example, you cannot miss the displays of old wagons and so forth used to move ore out of the Valley. It doesn’t take a lot of careful study to figure out that many park roads originated in an era of prospecting and mining. There are several well-known examples of structures left over from that era in and around the park, too.

It is largely because of this history that many areas of this national park are (or have been – some are now reverting to wilderness status) accessible by gravel road or four-wheel-drive routes. I would argue that you can’t really get to know this park if you just stick to the paved roads and the points of interest that they access. If you drive any of these other routes and keep your eyes open you will often be surprised by the left overs from relatively recent mining and prospecting, much of which isn’t really written about or described in the usual guides to the park. (And I’m not going to offer specific details about where to find such places here, since I don’t want to be even a little bit responsible for damage to them. If you do visit, treat them with care and respect.)

As I drove along a gravel road in one of the many mountain ranges of the park, returning from a site that is somewhat well-known, I began to notice evidence of fairly recent mining and prospecting. Faint tracks depart from the main “road” and cross valleys and hills, here and there tailing piles and mine entrances are visible, and sometimes you come across old structures such as cabins, storage bunkers, or wooden towers above mine entrances. I spotted the ruins of this old cabin above the road at one point and decided to walk up and investigate.

I’m almost always surprised at how “modern” many of the traces found at these places seem to be. I guess I am expecting something from the 1800s, but quite a few of these places look like they were build and occupied much later than that. I find modern things like linoleum flooring or modern-looking nails or electrical wire in many of them. There obviously isn’t much left of this cabin now, but from the detritus lying around near it and the form and materials found here, it must have been a reasonably comfortable place to live. As I walk around such places I often try to imagine what it must have been like to wake up every morning in this silent desert and head out for another day of physical labor.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter (follow me) | Facebook (“Like” my page) | 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: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Steel Towers, Night

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Steel Towers, Night
Steel Towers, Night

Steel Towers, Night. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. April 16, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Massive steel towers stand against the night sky at Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.

This is a vertical format photograph of the same series of overhead ship yard structures that I posted in horizontal format recently. As in the other, the illumination comes from very warm (verging on orange-yellow) light from nearby security lights in the shipyard. As a result the extremely hot colors of the metal structures are juxtaposed with the relatively cooler colors of moonlit night sky on this full moon night.

The structures, along the shoreline at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, were apparently used to move heavy ship components between nearby shops and ships along the waterfront. As I understand it, the yard has been out of commission for about a decade and a half at this point, and the huge mechanical/industrial structures are showing the effects via peeling paint and rust.

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

Yellow Buildings, Fence, and Night Sky

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Yellow Buildings, Fence, and Night Sky
Yellow Buildings, Fence, and Night Sky

Yellow Buildings, Fence, and Night Sky. Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California. April 16, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Night photograph of abandoned industrial buildings from the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard.

The building on the left is sometimes known as the “UFO Building” – not because of anything that might be stored inside, but because of a shadow in the shape of a “flying saucer” that forms on one of its walls. I thought it was the only one until I took this photo in which you might spot another saucer-shaped shadow on the wall of the building at the right.

This scene is not a particularly unusual one at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, a place that is full of old industrial buildings left over from the long ship-building history on this island. Many of the old buildings are now in a state of somewhat arrested development, but they certainly show the signs of age and lack of care – lots of boarded up buildings, peeling paint, warnings about hazards of various kinds, and so forth.

Most of the light in this photograph comes from a bank of strong security lights on the exterior of a more modern nearby building, and the yellow color is a result of the type of lighting that is used. There is also a bit of full moon light in the shadows and on the bit of cloud at the upper right, and this also explains the lighter coloration of the sky. When making night photographs in a place like this, I feel comfortable about not really trying to “capture” an objective reality of the place. To be blunt, that is pretty much impossible. First of all, it is actually so dark in many of these places that it takes a while for your eyes to get used to it. Secondly, there are so many varied light sources with so many different colorations that it is essentially impossible to “color correct” the scene – though I’m not even quite certain what it would mean to do that in a scene that we really can’t “see” with our own eyes.

The idea in my night photography is not often to capture the scene as it “is,” but instead to reflect the way “the camera sees,” a way of seeing that is quite different from our native modes of seeing. Things that occur over long periods of time (exposures measured in minutes) appear in a single frame, sometimes objects lose their definition as shadows move and wind blows, stars create streaks in the sky and passing clouds blur, and the colors are far from “natural.”

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter (follow me) | Facebook (“Like” my page) | 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.