In a way, I would almost prefer to not identify this location, even the city — but since it is my habit to provide some information I will confess that I made the photograph in San Francisco. I joined up with a few of my fellow Studio Nocturne SF photographer to head out into the San Francisco night to do some night photography. We stopped at two locations. This first one is actually a fairly well-known location, but I decided to mostly not photograph the familiar subject but instead wander around and look for other things.
Recently I have been doing a lot of my night photography, especially the part of it done in cities, using a small, handheld camera. I’m essentially able to do street photography in the (near) dark, which means that I can often work quickly and without drawing as much attention as I would with a larger camera and a tripod. This photograph, which seems more like something that would warrant the use of a tripod, was made in this way.
We are fortunate to be able to visit New York City from time to time — perhaps once a year and occasionally more often. To anyone who thinks of me a “that landscape photographer guy,” it might seem a bit odd that I also love the intense urban environment of such a place — but I do. Although it can become overwhelming eventually — as almost everyone says, “I love to visit, but I couldn’t live there.” — it is also energizing. There is so much to see and do, whether or not it involves photography.
I always photograph when I visit New York. I photograph in a different way than I do when I’m out in the American West. For example, I work with handheld cameras and tend to work while on the move. But I think that I also see the place at least a bit through the eyes of a landscape photographer, and I think of the city as a place to photograph the “urban landscape.” Although I’ve done night photography for more than a decade, recently I’ve gotten more interested in handheld urban night street photography. This photograph of a little evening street scene with pedestrians walking in and out of the light pools cast from business windows is one example.
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. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Star trails above the Manifold, Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park, California.
The Story
Because I was there with Patty Emerson Mitchell, who had not been to the park before, it was important to make it to some of the iconic locations during our early April visit to Death Valley National Park. On our final morning we went to Zabriskie Point and stood in line with the other photographers in the early morning to wait for dawn. To be honest, dawn at this place IS special, though I mostly shot small vignettes of nearby formations, since I already have almost all of the Zabriskie photos I’ll likely need!
We arrived a bit after some of the other photographers had arrived and we went to the “usual spot” below the main overlook and found an opening in the line-up of photographers where we would have a clear view of the surroundings and not interfere with others who were already there. At one point I was working out some compositions with a very long lens pointed down at some little gullies below our position when a fellow (who shall remain nameless, though I later found out that he is someone who should know better) must have become interested in what I was doing. Either very interested in “my” shots or else completely oblivious to anyone else, he wandered over right in front of my camera and stood there looking and taking handheld photographs!
There are several ways to respond to this. Shouting “What the hell!” might have been one of them, but instead I just thought it was funny. I suppose if the light had been truly astonishing I might have yelled (or mused about simply pushing him over the edge! ), but with fairly static light at that moment I simply chuckled a bit and pointed him out to my wife.
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. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
I have so many photographs in the queue right now that I have decided to do something a bit different and post some of them in collections. This first group features night photography from the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, a location where I have been doing night photography for about a decade now. As is often the case, this visit was with my friends from The Nocturnes, the San Francisco Bay Area night photography group.
A street light illuminates tracks running down Railroad Avenue at historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard
This is probably one of the iconic views of the nighttime environment at Mare Island, as it was made in a location where many night photographers start, whether it is their first visit or their fiftieth time there. The spot is near the Mare Island Museum, which holds many objects and photographs from the long history of the place as the first important west coast naval ship yard. The tracks – obviously! – given this street its name. The tower is the chimney of the old power plant, and off in the distance more of the old ship yard buildings are visible.
Red light behind the door of an industrial building at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard
I was interested in the windows, doorway, and wall of this building for several reasons on this visit. First – and night photographers will understand – Mare Island has recently started to see an update of its lighting. As newer and presumably more energy-efficient types of lighting become available, the older lighting gets replaced. Some years ago the move was to the intensely yellow sodium vapor lights (which you can see in other images in this set), but today it is to what I understand are LED systems. Since the ambient light is tremendously important to night photographers, we notice that this produces a significant change in the mood of photographs made here since the LED light seems to have a much more subtle coloration that is closer to what we might regard as daylight. The new lighting has been installed by this building, so I wanted to see how I could use it to make a photograph that still captured the feeling of the night. In addition, I noticed some subtle red interior lights behind the doorway that seem to suggest something a bit mysterious in this scene.
A green tinted shadow falls across the front of a yellow building, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard
There are several things I like about this photograph of the side of a tall building and a lower section casting an odd green shadow. In much night photography we create photographs of things that we actually cannot see – essentially we are making photographs of what the camera sees. Standing in front of this scene it was very, very dark and the details of the building wall was barely visible at all. However, after shooting this stuff for some time I can recognize what might happen with an exposure long enough to make this scene visible. The old sodium vapor lamps are still installed along this street, and I knew that their yellow light would have a powerful effect on the colors of the scene. I also know that where there is a shadow that is not illuminated by sodium vapor light, the shadow will take on the colors of other kinds of ambient lighting – in this case a relatively green type of light coming from a nearby open area. In the end, without actually doing any light painting (the process of using colored lights and gels to illuminate the subject) I was able to make a photograph that is “naturally” just as wildly colorful.
Metal wall with white doors, window, and Reserved Parking sign
The plain and simple geometry of this building and its front wall has attracted me for several years, with its vertical lines, square forms of the door and the shadows, and the surprising orange highlights – and I have photographed it before. This building is now also lit by the newer lighting, so I had to see what I could do with this new coloration. I made two photographs of it. This one is a simple, straight-on view that is “about” the angular and square forms and the thin lines of orange paint and asphalt, with the only curves coming from the shadows in the window and a bit of broken-off pipe near the bottom center.
White door on a metal building with industrial structures of Mare Island Naval Ship Yard in the distance
This is a different take on the same wall, here composed off-center so that some of the darker ship yard machinery and structures can be seen.
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. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
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.
